


Creep

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha Anya, Alpha Lexa, Dom/sub, Dominance, Dominant Anya, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Omega Clarke, Past Abuse, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Recovery, Submission, Submissive Clarke, Submissive Octavia, dominant lexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:05:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8086489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Clarke has a fear of men and a broken understanding of the world and her place within it after being rescued from her last dominant. After getting her third strike at Arkadia House, the only way Anya can save her newest ward is to place her with her best friend Lexa Woods; the last-surviving member of the powerful Woods family and heiress of Arcon Publishings.Can they both rescue each other from their ever-present pasts? Please Review!





	1. When You Were Here Before

The Woods' home was the grandest in Bennington and it didn't take much to earn that title, tucked away at the top of a gated road that slipped off from President Ford Avenue, the country pile existed in undisturbed peace with its ostentatious gardens and fixtures tended to by a skeleton crew of staff that no one in town particularly knew well enough to exchange anything more than pleasantries with. 

You prefered it that way; there was a time when the people in the town knew your family well. A time when nearly every family within a five mile radius converged on the Woods Estate for one of your father's famous cookouts. Though you'd never admit it, the memories always left you with a fond feeling in the pit of your stomach and an aching gnaw in your chest.

But locked away in your ivory tower, looking out onto the world through crystalline windows that were high enough to see over the walls that surrounded your humble estate, this was the prison where you kept yourself now — working on your best days and dying on your worst. 

There were much worse prisons to decay in, you decided in the moments you questioned your self-imposed exile from reality. The high garden walls that surrounded the estate were far enough away not to strangle you or your staff with proximity, but close enough to serve as a reminder that you don't have to worry about someone lurking on to the property with ill intention ever again.

The tepid knock to your study door disturbs your purposeful silence and it irks you enough to earn a little sigh. "Come in," you order the attendant with a measured tone, never once turning from your position, sat in your chesterfield office chair appraising the gardens outside of your window whilst the door creaks open behind you.

"Ma'am," Lincoln clears his throat and pokes his head around the great oak door frame. "Are you busy right now?" he asks you softly.

"I'm always busy." you reply with same short pithy tone you've proven masterful in.

"Anya is downstairs, she says she's not leaving until you see her." Lincoln mused in reply, you hear his footsteps wander further into the study and you can feel his eyes burning into the back of your head, waiting and doing little else, but silence is all you offer him.

He waited longer than you thought he would before feeling the need to disturb your silence once more with verbosity, "Should I send her in?" he added and the twiddle of his thumbs was audible to your ears.

With that you roll your eyes and swivel in your chair to face him. "It would seem you've already decided that for me, given that I  _ explicitly _ told you never to disturb me unless absolutely necessary." you groan and feel your brow furrow into mountain ridges. "It really is a simple request." you remind him.

"Sorry," he offers you a slight shrug with his big lumbering shoulders, "I can send her away if it would please you."

"Yes, it would please me—"

Before you can finish the sentence you hear the familiar grating sniggers of your best friend and the door to your study suddenly swings open a little wider. Lincoln is no match for her, it's one of the things you resentfully love about Anya the most, the incomparable way she gets what she wants every  _ single _ time. "Well, don't you know how to break a girl's heart." she pulled her lips into an exaggerated frown and all you can do is grind your jaw in frustration.

"Well I suppose you better sit down." you gesture to the chair in front of your desk, "That will be all,  _ thank you, _ Lincoln." you glare at your valet and he offers you an apologetic look, closing the doors behind himself.

Anya sits in front of you expectantly, arms crossed, sagging boneless against the back of her chair with paperwork already stacked neatly in front of her on the mahogany surface. In another life, your best friend would have made an excellent second-in-command on the company board of directors, but you can't help admiring her for choosing a calling that was so far beneath her station; working as a white collar stiff for the the Department of Submissive Rehabilitation.

"How big of a donation do you need?" you ask, already digging through the draw at the side of your desk for your cheque book and fountain pen. "Are you raising money for a new hospital or a scholarship programme this time?" you enquire, licking the end of your pen and slipping your reading glasses over the bridge of your nose.

"Nothing like that." she shakes her head and sets her clasped hands over the paperwork, "I have a much bigger request this time. I know it's short notice and  _ I know _ you don't like to be disturbed up here but I wouldn't come to you if I had any other option." she said exasperatedly and tucked her hair behind her ears.

"I don't know how many more of your big requests I can take… cutting the ribbon at your precious library opening was the cherry on the cake."

Anya's eyes narrow and her nose shrivels up into that precarious look of disgust that is quintessentially Anya and all you can do is brace yourself for the oncoming verbal storm. "That was your library opening!" she reminds you loudly, "It literally had your name on the side of the damn building!"

Her words are enough to make you wince at the memories of the press practically climbing over each other to ask you questions you didn't care to hear; children with their sticky disgusting hands reaching out for handshakes; Anya breathing down your neck telling you every five minutes to smile and pretend you're having a good time. The battle scars of your last public outing were well and truly carved into you.

"All I'm saying is you were pretty set on me going to the damn thing." you groan and lean back in your chair, "Who's stupid idea was it to even put my name on the side of that library?"

"Yours. It was your stupid idea." Anya chides you and folds her suit jacket over her lap, "Look for the sake of brevity I'm just going to cut to the point."

"Thank god."

"In this folder," Anya ignores your sarcasm and pushes forward a brown document. "Is the case file for a girl I'm working with and I  _ need _ your help." she said slowly and enunciated every word clear as day so there is no misunderstanding of how crucial your assistance is.

"Sure, whatever, if I sponsor your submissive do I get a picture of her running around on a farm somewhere every month and a newsletter about how well she's doing?" you raise your brow and try terribly to temper the snarky little grin that's eating away at your cheeks.

"Lexa!" Anya bit and ran a hand through her thick mane, "If you read a  _ sentence _ in that report of what this girl has gone through!" she tempered her tone and paused, "She was being rehabilitated at Arkadia House but she's on her final strike — she's completely terrified of men, she's violently attacked all of the male staff and if she so much as farts in the direction of a floor warden they're going to ship her out to a secure unit."

_ Well, I do like a girl with some attitude in her,  _ you can't help but think to yourself with a small smile that you hide behind the knuckles you've now set between your teeth. "I'm not sure how this has anything to do with me?" you reply, slightly more curious than you would like.

"I know this girl's case back to front and she  _ needs _ a female dominant—"

"Anya!" you growl and lift your hand to halt the conversation, "How can you even ask me what you're about to ask me?"

"What choice do I have?" Anya concedes and tosses the dossier she's created on this faceless submissive in front of you. you're so furious your saliva turns into gasoline and your words dissolve into nothing more than an expression of sheer frustration.

There's still a family portrait that hangs on the bearing wall with Costia tucked underneath your chin grinning, you can feel her staring at you, half agony and half disgust that you would desecrate her memory like this.

"—She's the worst case I've ever handled, Lexa. Please. I'm begging you."

"Then you claim her if you want to rehome her so badly!" you spit.

"Oh, I'm sure Octavia would be thrilled about that." her face dissolves into a vacant expression, "Lexa, you are the only other female dominant I know this side of the state line and I am out of options. I know if you met this girl, you would like her."

"Really? Because it sounds a lot like the operative part of that statement was that I'm the only female dominant you know for two hundred miles and you're all out of options." you sour and push the dossier back towards her, "Thank you for stopping by Anya but I think our meeting is over." you say matter of fact, pulling yourself out of your executive chair.

"You need someone, Aleksa."

"Excuse me?"

She looks up at you with those pitiful dark eyes that see through your facade expertly and you feel sickened. "You need someone." she repeats a little more firmer, "Whether it be just for company, I don't know, but what I do know is that I have a submissive who needs somewhere to stay with someone who can appreciate what it's like to have everything ripped out from underneath you in the blink of an eye… the department allows for dominants to make a non-permanent claim over troubled submissives; if it doesn't work out I will drive her to the secure unit myself on Monday." she finally breathes and pushes the dossier back in front of your nose. "Her name is Clarke." she softly smiles and coaxes you to take the form set in her hand.

Scratched is the skin on your palm where you've dug your nails into half crescent moons right into the flesh; you breathe a breath that puffs out your chest with a violent kind of concession because you know once again Anya will get what she wants the way she always does and you can barely handle your fury that she knows how to press your buttons so well.

You snatch the piece of paper out of Anya's hand and sign on the dotted line, "If this ends badly, on your head be it." you seethe and push the document forward. "She can stay here temporarily until you find a good home." you add as an afterthought.

She files it away methodically in her briefcase and organises her paperwork back into some semblance of order; she pulls one document back out though with a peculiar look on her face, the brown case folder from earlier. "Just in case you ever want to know where she comes from." Anya shrugs and pushes it back towards you.

"When do I come and pick her up?"

"No need, she's sat outside." Anya replies so nonchalantly you do a double take. "Clarke?" she calls over her shoulder.

"Are you kidding me right now?" you growl and wrap your arms around the spot on your shirt where a drop of mustard stained it yellow over lunch. Hardly the most becoming of outfits for someone to see you in. "She was sat outside the entire time?" you hiss.

"I know right, can you imagine how uncomfortable the ride home would have been if you said no?" Anya chuckled and shook her head with a little relieved sigh, "Clarke?" she called a little louder. "Don't make me come out there and get you." she warned with a little sternness to her otherwise gentle tone.

The door opens and you lose your breathe. Thin bruised arms, dirt worn into her skin, hair matted into long thick ropey pieces of hair; but all you see are her eyes, they're as blue as cornflower. 

"Ah, Clarke…" Anya stands from her chair and moves towards the submissive and you watch enthralled and ashamed as she flinches away from your friend like a doe on wobbling knees. Anya stops just shy of a metre or two and softens the infliction of her voice, "This is Miss Lexa. You're going to stay here with her for a while and I'll be back on Monday to check in with you all, okay?"

Clarke stares at her with pleading eyes not to be left here, she won't let Anya get anywhere near her but she makes it clear with sharp little looks that Anya is the only dominant in the room she trusts. You're fine with that, the less attachment the better.

"You know I wouldn't let anything happen to you, right?" Anya lowers her voice.

She just about nodded.

"Can you take care of my friend for me whilst I'm gone? she's a lost cause and she could do with someone to keep her company…" Anya rambled and Clarke barely even looked at her in acknowledgement, "Lex if you need anything call me." Anya nods at you one last time and scooches past the line that marked the submissive's wide berth of personal space towards the door; seconds later she's gone and you're left alone with this tiny thing dressed in nothing more than an oversized threadbare shirt that falls just above her knees.

It's been so long since you've had a submissive around you that you find yourself pausing and stumbling over something to say; it's an unusual feeling and so you keep quiet for a moment and hold a pensive face, hoping that she isn't intuitive. "Well, you don't look all that frightening." you can't help but cock your head and appraise her with a little smile.

The girl is as still as a statue — she doesn't move a single inch and for a second you wonder whether this is all an elaborate joke; her skin is dirty and mottled with blue bruises and she's hunched over like she's dying and this is  _ not _ how you envisioned your Thursday evening going. you try to distract yourself with these little novel thoughts because the reality of being sat with an objectively very pretty albeit shaking girl, dirty and bruised to the high heavens, head downcast to the floor because she's no doubt terrified of you is a lot to swallow.

The mug falls to the floor before you even notice it was teetering on the edge of your desk in the first place, you must have knocked it with your elbow absentmindedly and before you can catch it, hot coffee splashes over your lap and the ceramics shatter across the floor — no doubt staining the solid oak furnishings with what's left of the black drink. 

"Shit!" you yell mainly out of reflex and leap out of the chair, dabbing your trousered legs with a napkin as the stinging sensation of black coffee scalding your thighs slowly ebbs away.

Napkin pressed against the damp spots on your black trousers, eyeing up the broken shards of mug on the floor, you practically forget the girl is even there until you glance up and catch the sight of her white knuckles balled into fists so tight her arms shake, well, all of her is shaking.

You've frightened her, it dawns on you and an immeasurable guilt felled you like a bolt of lightning that hit an old oak tree in the forest. "Clarke?" you say as softly as you can muster and move around your desk. "Clarke?" you try and tentatively coax the girl once again into so much as looking at you.

Her head is hanging like the muscles in her neck don't exist and all you can focus on is the way her knees knock and tremble against one another, hands clenched, shaking and breathing breaths big enough to make her chest shudder.

You get maybe a clean six feet away from her before her head snaps up and her wide cornflower eyes lock onto you like a rabbit caught in a bear trap. "Okay, okay," you hold your hands up and stand as still as she did just a minute ago. "Don't worry I won't come any closer." you soften and it reassures her somewhat because she let's out the breath she's been holding.

You can't remember the last time you spoke gently with anyone, you're above that now, ridden of any need to participate in the illusion that you care even slightly what people think about you, yet you can't stop yourself be slightly enthralled with the frightened little thing in your study.

"I'm sorry that I frightened you, Clarke, I accidentally knocked a mug of coffee over and burned myself. It's no excuse for cursing though, I must have given you a very bad first impression. I'll be much more careful about raising my voice around you, I promise." you say the words slowly with a dulcet tone you buried long ago with Costia. "Are you hungry or thirsty at all?"

Her face is vacant and she doesn't give you a response, her trembling arms slowly start to soothe themselves beneath your dulcet words and you take it as a sign that she can hear you.

"I bet Anya's offered you nothing to eat," you laugh and shake your head, tucking wispy bits of dark hair off of your face. "It's not her fault I guess, Octavia doesn't eat much and Anya's too wrapped around her little finger to get her to eat more." you muse out loud and you're not quite sure why you're telling this girl these things but they must be working because her fists slowly unravel finger by finger.

"Would you like to take a walk with me? sometimes when I have things on my mind it helps if I just take a walk around." you ask and dig your hands into your trouser pockets, "You would really be doing me a favor... I could do with letting my pants dry out." you coax a little more.

She looks at you with a soft kind of curiosity for a fleeting moment and you see yourself in the reflection of her eyes; you look kinder, more in control than you've looked in a while. It dawns on you that this little broken submissive is the first new person you've said more than a sentence to in longer than you can remember.

"You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to." you confirm quickly, "Just nod your head if you'd like to take a walk and I can show you the house and go through the rules."

There's a timid little nod, you bite your mouth so you don't grin like a fool.

You move to the door and hold it open for her; she stares at you for a moment, uncertain on what to do, either that or she's testing your limits. She'll be waiting for a while, you think and smile. If there's one thing you've grown accustomed to on the estate it's the sound of acquired silence and you know you can hold it long past her concession point until she walks through the door you're holding open.

Six minutes and twelve seconds: that's how long it takes until she takes tentative wary steps towards you and walks within reaching distance of your body through the door. "Good girl," you praise her promptly as she passes you, "I bet I can beat—I mean win at a game of I spy, you know, if you want to play on our walk?" you nearly hit yourself in the mouth for your stupid choice of words.

 


	2. Couldn't Look You In The Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gentle warning guys that this chapter might get a little rough emotionally.

There's something beautifully macabre about the gardens.

They were your mother's pride and joy; father had the best landscapers in Europe flown here to craft her a sea of flowers to lose herself in with her favourite books and worn picnic blanket stretched out over the lawn. Then you were born and the classic novels were replaced with comics and she would lead you by the hand deep into the maze of hedges and you'd fall asleep in your mother's lap whilst she thread daisies through your hair and told you stories of how her garden would be Costia's to take care of one day.

Somehow everything had changed except for this damn garden, and though you hated it, stared at it resentfully through the west windows every time you graced the staircase — you could never bring yourself to send the groundskeepers away.

Today the hatred was less palpable though, Clarke trails far behind you; disinterested in whatever it is you're blabbering about, arms wrapped around herself, still not talking but you keep walking and muttering on anyway because the more you talk the more you see the corners of her mouth occasionally twitch into some kind of expression other than vacancy. You've been walking around and taking in the views together for hours now and she still hasn't spoken, you don't mind too much, it's actually quite pleasant not having someone else's narrative loudly filling your head every few seconds.

"—personally my favourite flower is the lillie. Anya makes fun of me for that, she says it's too morbid. I don't mind though. I just wish there were more lilies in the garden but my mother's favorite colour was pink," you pause and cover your mouth as if the past tense verb scalds your tongue, "anyway... as you can see my father was smitten." you gesture to the sea of pink flowers before you both.

You turn and her eyes have grown wide; they're not skittish or frightened this time, it's different, you appraise her for barely a moment and quickly come to the realisation that it's disbelief, it's etched into her quirked brows and pursed lips. You wonder if her disbelief is founded in the idea that a dominant could ever love a submissive enough to raise a sea of flowers from the dirt for her. It leaves you with a strange feeling, because that's the only idea you were ever taught.

You tilt your head in her direction, "Do you like them?" you ask softly.

She throws her eyes down to the floor and you watch her lips purse and pull with uncertainty, nervous and unsure on what answer you want from her.

"It's okay," you take a step closer and she flinches. "Clarke, look at me," you tell her a little firmer, "I want you to look at me please." you repeat with that dulcet tone and she doesn't obey you.

It leaves you annoyed and that in turn leaves you disgusted with yourself that you would feel anything on such a primitive level for a submissive who is not yours, but annoy you it does.

"Will you come sit down with me?" you change the subject and gesture to the outdoor furniture tucked away inside a small cove of ivy and to your surprise she follows you timidly to the table. "I'm going to explain to you the ground rules of my home now, if you have any questions please wait until I'm finished speaking to raise your voice," you say as you sit down, "though I don't think that will be too much of a problem, will it?" you glance at her and offer a warm smile.

You swear you see her nod, but you wonder whether it's your own imagination.

She stands at the furthest corner of the table away from you and you pause for a moment, willing her to sit down. It irks you slightly and earns a little tepid sigh that escapes your nostrils as you wait for her to accept your hospitality. "Clarke, sit." you tell her firmly but with the softest infliction you can manage.

You barely finish your sentence before she sinks to her bare knees on the gravel, hands clasped in front of her lap, head hung low, shoulders shivering nervously and the wind escapes your chest. You can't breathe. The sight in front of you throttles you and all you feel is the guilt weighing in your gut like a stone that's pressing up into your lungs.

"No!" you gasp and immediately hate yourself for frightening her again, "No, _honey,_ don't kneel on the gravel you'll hurt your knees." you repeat softly, closing your eyes to afford yourself a brief moment of not having to see her little shoulders tremble. "Guests in my home, submissive or not, sit at my table."

You stand up slowly and offer her a hand to help herself up with, she doesn't take it and you don't force her to. Instead you move around the table and pull out a chair for her, "Please sit at the table?" you encourage her.

She looks up at you, peers right into your eyes and holds her gaze for more than a second and her eyes are so beautiful and so sad, she looks between you and the chair and the fear emanates from her as if she's taking two orders from two conflicting dominants.

"Your old master only let you kneel, didn't he?" you sigh regretfully and she nods her head. You feel nothing but the deepest sympathy for this sweet little thing in front of you with her matted blonde hair and dirty skin. You hate Anya for involving you in this, you firmly decide, because you're a sucker for a good sob story.

"Well, can you scooch up and make room?" you groan inwardly and get down on your hands and knees a meter or two from her position, she stares at you and watches your every movement. "If my guest won't sit at the table, then I'll just have to kneel with her on the ground." you explain away as if this is something you do all the time. The gravel digs into your knees and you want to grimace and hiss at the sensation but you stop yourself for fear of frightening Clarke.

Her eyes widen into concern and she shuffles just the tiniest bit closer to your direction, her cheeks burning red, lips between her teeth.

"Do you not want us to kneel on the gravel anymore? I mean, it's pretty uncomfortable, I think my knees might get scratched but if this is where you want me to sit…"

Ashamed and disgusted as she is, she quickly gets up off the ground and stands awkwardly, unsure on what the proper protocol is for sitting at a table after undoubtedly spending years on the ground. You get up off the gravel too and sigh with relief that your little plan worked, but you watch a violent kind of embarrassment take over her, probably at the concept of having made a dominant kneel, she pinches the inside of her wrist until half crescent moons dig into her skin and her cheeks puff with frustration.

"Don't do that." you tell her firmly and nod down to her pinched skin, she quickly releases her grip and lets her hands sag to her thighs as she takes a seat at the table. "Good girl. Do you remember what my name is?"

She nods.

"Good, that's very good that you were paying attention," you praise her and lean back in your chair. "You might hear the house staff call me all kinds of things like Ma'am or Miss but it's very important to me that you just call me Lexa. I'm not your dominant and you don't have to call me anything other than my name."

You take a breath and though she doesn't respond you're confident she's listening intently to your words.

"I ask that you treat my staff with the due respect you would treat myself with," you rattle off and doubt that will be a problem at all, the girl is selectively mute after all. "I'd also like for you to join me for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day so I know for my own peace of mind you've eaten."

At that she throws you a curious look and you can confidently assume her master never let her eat around him either.

"Do you remember the different parts of the house I showed you?" you press on and in turn she gives a weak little nod, "You can go wherever you want and do whatever you like during the day but you are _never_ to go in the room at the end of my corridor under _any_ circumstances." you enunciate the words slowly and inflict the operative verbs so there's no misunderstanding. "Do I make myself clear?"

She nods once more.

"I er—" you pause, unsure on how to discuss this with ease. "I have men who work on the premises," you force the awkward words out and look away for a moment. "Is that going to be a problem?"

You glance back at her frame and her knuckles are dug into the side of the arm rests.

She's terrified.

"I will ask Lincoln and Nyko to stay very, very far away from you. I will keep you safe, I promise you." you whisper and offer her a warm little look that dampens her resolve just slightly. "I had my dinner before you got here… do you want me to ask the kitchen to make you something?" you change the subject.

She looks to the ground and you take that as a no.

"If you change your mind, just let somebody know and you can have some food, under normal circumstances I wouldn't allow it but you can even have chocolate cake or ice cream before meal times if you decide you want some." you grin playfully and lean across the table, you don't know why you're suddenly invested, but you want to give her as many choices to make for herself as possible.

Her mouth twitches into a smile.

She smiles and you think you might die.

Blushing and suddenly choked for words, you tap your fingers over your knee to serve as a little reminder that she isn't Costia. Costia is gone. Costia is dead. It gnaws at your heart and blisters your insides but you have to tell yourself these things because Clarke isn't yours and your stomach has no right to tie itself in knots when she smiles.

"It's getting late," you muse, "I'll take you back to the main house and let you get settled in your room. I'll be in my study for a while, perhaps if you don't feel too tired we can read a book together? It's been a long time since the books in the library have seen any attention…" you trail off and walk towards the main house with Clarke in quick pursuit behind you.

There's a violent gnawing pain in your chest and you can't decide whether it's because you've missed this; having someone to listen to your wispiest thoughts or because you hate yourself for taking this girl into your home. It fuels your pace towards the house. Clarke follows and you can hear her footsteps behind you falling in sync with yours and though it shouldn't please you that she's mirroring your movements, most likely subconsciously, you know it's a symptom that you're doing something right.

It's the first time you feel like you've done something right in longer than you can remember.

Finally, barely a hair out of place on your head even with the brisk pace of your walk, your proximity sets off the security light and Indra quickly opens the door to let you and a dordling Clarke into the western entrance of the property.

"Nice evening for a walk…" you surmise and nod your head, blood rushing to your cheeks as the warmth of the house envelopes you. Indra is staring at the girl behind you, watching her curiously and it dawns on you the staff aren't expecting guests.

"Indra this is Clarke," you step out of the way so the older woman can get a better look at your visitor, "she's going to be staying with us for a while."

"Mmm," she makes a long noise and nods, sniffing and pulling a small face, you'd comment on it but you're not an absurdist and the girl does smell of musky sweat and dirt. "I'll make her some dinner Ma'am." she bows her head at you.

"Thank you but that won't be necessary." you assure your head of household, you can feel the pressure change in the room as Clarke breathes a sigh of relief that the older woman isn't staring at her anymore. "She'll eat when she's ready." you shrug your shoulders and take a glass from the cupboard.

"What are your instructions for this evening?"

You think for a moment as you grab the bottle of Yamazaki single malt that puts you down for bed most nights, "Get Clarke settled." you state and pour yourself half the amount of whiskey you normally would, "Indra, a word." you beckon her closer and she obliges. "Clarke is very fragile and quiet…" you whisper and wonder how to phrase what you mean.

"Say no more, I'll take care of everything." Indra pats your shoulder and in turn you offer her a thankful smile.

"Very good." you sigh and tuck the bottle of whiskey under your arm, "Clarke, I'm going to go head to my study now and finish my work. Indra is going to take care of you and make sure you're comfortable. If you like, ask her to bring you to the study and we can read together if you want."

At that Clarke's lips curl into something that looks like a smile again. It quickly disappears. She's a bundle of frayed nerves, rubbing her fingers, looking at the floor in your presence. Existing with the whole world on her shoulders.

"Indra," you look over your shoulder and earn an acknowledging hum, "Be very gentle with Clarke, don't raise your voice and see to it that some of my clothes are laid out for her." you glance back at her dirty oversized t-shirt, "Clarke is to ask you out loud to be taken to the study if she wishes to read tonight." you clear your throat and instruct them both carefully, "Guests in my house use their voices." you tell Clarke softly and do all you can to stop yourself lifting her chin with your fingers.

With that Indra takes control and beckons the slight girl to follow her upstairs to the guest room. She's already started muttering small things about a hot bath and soap with an infliction harsher than what you'd like to hear but Clarke seems content enough to follow her so you let it slide. It's cool weather tonight. The warmth of the house has crept up your back and sat on your shoulders.

It's a short climb of the stairs to the study, you open the door to find your editorial drafts laid out neatly for you waiting for approval so the magazines you begrudgingly own can set to work on next week's covers. It's a tempestuous relationship at best, you stay out of the way as much as you can, and in return the twelve publications you own and their editor-in-chiefs keep the work pile on your desk as slim as possible.

Often not as slim as you'd like.

"Lincoln," you holler as you catch his shadow move past your door.

He enters your office, "Ma'am?" he raises his brow.

"The girl who came with Anya earlier," you sigh and gesture off towards the west wing with your hand, "She's staying with us as a guest from Arkadia House and I need you to be… _careful."_ you explain as tersely as possible.

"I don't follow."

"She's frightened of men." you answer and sit in your chair, "I want to make this as easy as possible for her so if you wouldn't mind, please make sure you and Nyko keep your distance."

He gives you a shallow nod and looks towards the leather chair facing your desk, "May I join you for a moment?"

"By all means."

"Did you know my mother came from Arkadia House when she joined the household?"

You sit back in your chair, a little surprised, not that you cared much about the goings on of the people who lived downstairs but you remembered Lincoln's mother fondly. She was your nanny for many years before a bout of cancer took her away from him far too soon. It was how he came to your family's service, your father collected him from the social worker and took him in as the family's ward after her passing, swore a blood oath that the boy would have a place in your home until he found a dominant to love him.

"I didn't know that." you reply a touch late.

"She must have had something awful happen to her to end up at Arkadia House, Miss."

"I suppose you're right," you nod thoughtfully. glancing at the brown coffee-stained folder Anya gave you earlier. "Do you think your mother was happy here, you know, after she went to Arkadia House?" you ask curiously.

Though the subject was sad his mouth widened into a beaming smile, "My mother said working here were the happiest years of her life. You, your family, she said your dad doubled her pay at Christmas because he wanted her to be able to buy me as many presents for christmas as your parents bought you." he chuckled at the memory, "In fact, I still have the Nintendo 64 she got me that year."

You feel a little relieved smile creep up your cheeks, "I think I remember your mom forcing you to let me play Zelda with you." you can't help but grin.

"Eh," he shrugs and sags boneless into the chair, "I gave you an unplugged controller but you were too little to notice." he teases and you roll your eyes, there's a pause that follows but he reads your mind masterfully. "However long your guest is with us, Miss Lexa, we'll make this a happy place for her. Don't you worry about that." he assures you, and it's times like this you just want to hug the big lug.

There's an ear piercing squeal that radiates through your house, it rumbles on and it rumbles on and you wonder what the ungodly sound is because it's inhuman; unlike anything you've heard before. Then it dawns on your quite suddenly whose lungs the curdling screams no doubt belong to. Lincoln shoots from his chair and all you can do is grab his hand to stop him running off.

"Don't!" you barely get the words out in time, "It'll make it worse." you clutch your head and start running towards what you're certain will be a swinging banshee tearing your guest bedroom apart brick from morter. "Make sure Nyko doesn't come this way!" you growl at Lincoln over your shoulder with foresight that even you were impressed with.

The guest bedroom is two doors down from your master suite, approximately two flights of stairs above your study, and somehow your legs can't carry you there fast enough. The screaming is endless like an unrelenting alarm and you can just about hear Indra's coarse voice gnashing behind the bedroom door that you practically pull of its hinges.

The bedroom is empty save for a slither of light creeping out from the bathroom door and your stomach ties itself in knots imagining what kind of trouble your poor ward has found herself in.

"Get… up…" you hear Indra huffing.

You open the door and with it your heart falls into the pit of your stomach and nobody needs to explain to you what's happened, it's all quite clear. The bath is still running, bubbles and all, the fresh clothes are laid out on the side table by the sink and Clarke is curled up in a tiny paralysed shape in the corner screaming so loud you know her throat and chest must be burning and gnawing with pain.

"That's enough," you can't help but hiss and your housekeeper immediately retracts her hands from Clarke's wrists. Livid doesn't even come close to describing the feeling burrowing into your spine. It sets you alight in a way that frightens you of what you might do.

"Ma'am—"

"Get out." you order her with gnashing teeth, "I don't know what the hell is going on here but if I _ever_ see you handle a guest of mine like that again…" you can't even get the words out, your chest is shuddering and your words have turned to gasoline in your mouth. "Get out." you order her.

You close the bathroom door as Indra leaves and you feel sick.

The screaming has largely stopped except for long drawn out aching whimpers that rattle her chest like a lamb in a slaughterhouse. Clarke gasps for breath, aches for it, gulps it in but it's not enough. The dominant within you has largely taken control and you're just a prisoner watching things transpire; you want to take control, you want to bundle her in your arms and hush her and rub the length of her spine until she melts in your arms.

You hold on to enough self restraint to keep yourself rooted to the spot, you keep yourself there, watching and dying until the timing is right to speak.

"Clarke," you say softly after a moment, "it's okay, Indra's gone now, I sent her away." you explain and set your knuckles between your teeth. "I'm going to take a step closer, okay? I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to turn the faucets off before they overflow."

You move closer to turn the faucets off and you sit on the edge of the bath, wishing and waiting until she calms down.

Her arms are wrapped around her head and she cowers from you, shaking and mumbling noises that you can't quite distinguish into words, her t-shirt is hiked up to her waist and you imagine Indra running the bath and telling your frightened little guest she had to wash. Did she try to take Clarke's shirt off? You wonder, did she grab her wrist and pull her towards the bath?

"Clarke," you clear your throat and twiddle your thumbs. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, in my home no less. I should have explained to Indra that you don't like to be touched and I should have told her to check with you first to see if you wanted any help. I'm here now and you're safe, okay? No one is going to make you do _anything_ you don't want to do."

She looks at you with bright blue cornflower eyes that peek through a gap between her forearms, she's trembling, blinking and finding her bearings.

"Your name is Clarke." you say it slowly and enunciate her name with a soft kind of punctuation. "You came here with Anya this afternoon from Arkadia House — you're staying with me, Lexa, in my home for a while and I don't know what happened just now but I sent Indra far away. You're safe and I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, okay?"

You look down and feel ashamed beyond measure.

She had wet herself.

You know she must have seen you notice because she cowers with her body curled inward and her arms wrapped over her head and what you interpret as embarrassment you quickly realise is her protecting herself in case you start beating her.

"You're a good girl," you breathe and you don't know why you think this will work but you roll with it anyway. "You're a very, very good girl and you haven't done anything bad — I'm not going to punish you okay?" you hum softly and inch a tiny bit closer. "Would it be okay if help you stand up? I don't want you sat on a cold hard floor, good girls doesn't sit on the ground, remember?" you hush her with a strained dulcet tone that holds back the heat in your throat.

"I—" Clarke rasps, clearing her throat, staring at you carefully with big blue eyes. "I— I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean, I'm sorry, so sorry, Miss Lexa." she strings the words together and you hear the months of inactivity within her voice. "It was an accident — p-please d-don't hurt me." she breaks and you want nothing more than to rock her back and forth with strong arms.

"I'm not going to hurt you and you don't have to call me Miss Lexa." you promise her tenderly, "Would you like to take a bubble bath?" you offer the filled bath with your hand as she pulls herself up from the ground. "I can give you some privacy..."

"I—" she pauses and fumbles on her words, never once looking you in the eye. "It hurts." she mumbles so quietly you can barely hear her.

"I'm sure it does." you nod in agreement, appraising all the bruises and old cuts on her skin. "I think you'd feel much better after a long bath, but if you don't want to, nobody is going to make you little one." the words flow so freely off your tongue and you can't help but clench your eyes and hope she doesn't pick up on the last part.

"She g-grabbed my s-shirt." she limply hangs her head and tries to explain. "I want to take a bath but I don't like b-being grabbed or touched." she wraps her arms around herself and hides from your acute gaze.

"Would you like me to leave and give you some privacy—"

Her eyes suddenly come up to meet you, desperate and needing, "Please d-don't leave me alone." she whispers.

"Then I won't."

She thanks you softly and you sit yourself down on the ledge of the step in shower, unsure on what your purpose is here. You quickly decide it's to act as her faithful sentinel and keep her safe, blabbering about the wayward thoughts that cross your mind to distract her like you've done all day. "I think my favourite colour might be gold," you muse out loud, "sometimes I think it's silver and other days I like blue but today I think it might be gold, what's your favourite?"

You watch her think carefully as she tries to inch the shirt off of her back, her shoulders are tender and swollen, you can see that through the large arms of her t-shirt that dangle down and offer you a view of the side of her chest.

"Whatever you want my favourite colour to be Miss Lexa." she reels off.

"That isn't what I asked," you remind her gently, "what is _your_ favourite colour?"

"Whatever pleases you Miss Lexa."

It dawns on you this must have been a rule of her previous life, don't disagree, don't think for yourself, do as you're told and say what you're told to say. It's a battle for another day you decide, talking alone is enough of a victory today though you're not thrilled about the pet name she has decided for you but it could be worse you resign yourself.

"Would you like some help with your top?" you offer, she's been trapped with the back of her shirt inching up her spine for half a minute and you feel uncomfortable not offering. "I can be very, very gentle?" you add.

"P-please, thank you." she stutters.

You place the material between your fingers and with an absolute precision you avoid the skin on her back all together, she flinches away from you, but her trembling stills as you pull the t-shirt over her head and free her all together. "See," you softly smile, "Not that bad right?"

She nods in agreement and climbs in the bath, the sight of her back sickens you to the core of yourself, scars lay criss-crossed over the skin, piled up over one another with fresh open wounds still on her back — they're dirty and red around the edges of the wound and the minute she's awake tomorrow Anya is going to hear an earful about this.

"You poor baby," you can't help but mutter quietly to yourself at the sight of her. Her eyes clench and her face winds up into a scrunched up mess as she lowers herself beneath the water that laps against the open wounds on her back.

"Can I get you anything?" you offer.

You catch a glimmer of confusion from her, hands dug into the sides of the bath, finally sitting down beneath the bubbles.

"You must think I'm crazy—"

"No!" she nearly yelps with a desperate skittish expression, "I— you're not crazy, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been rude, you're very kind to me…" her voice is so broken and tiny.

"Relax," you hush, "it's okay, I should have been more careful with my words. I just want to know if I can do anything for you because you're a very, _very_ good girl." you emphasize and she visibly deflates with relief.

"I can't—" she pauses and minds her words, "I, would you please, can you," she stumbles. "Will you h-help me clean my hair?"

You spare verbosity and simple move to the side of the bathtub, it's a bad idea and you know it, but the girl has taken a shining to you and unless someone tackles those dreadlocks they'll be knotted all the way to her scalp, so you concede and pull out shampoo and conditioner from the little soapbox at the foot of the bath. "Is it okay if I, you know, touch you?" you ask awkwardly and wet your hands with bath water.

"Please d-don't hurt me," she reminds you very quietly.

"I'll be very, very careful." you promise and guide her backwards to wet her hair, it splays out in the water paler than wheat and whilst you keep her there she rubs the dirt from her face with soapy hands to keep herself occupied and distracted.

Her shoulders are trembling and her neck keeps pulsing and you know she's fighting every urge to fly out of your grasp but somehow she keeps herself there and allows you, a dominant, to gently wash away the tangles in her hair; you make sure to lather her scalp very gently because you can feel tender swollen bruises beneath your fingertips and it weighs you down like lead.

"Such a brave girl," you remind her very softly and wash the lather out of her hair.

You wash her for all of ten minutes, conditioning her hair and combing it with your fingers and it dawns on you once she climbs out of the bath and towels herself off that you haven't drank yourself into a stupor tonight. Instead you tended to this little submissive and washed her hair, maybe Anya wasn't too far off of the mark, maybe having someone around for company wasn't a _terrible_ idea.

"Miss Lexa," she calls your name and you have to temper a grin at the way it sounds in her mouth, you'll start correcting her in the morning, you decide. "Can I," she stops herself and grinds her jaw and you know from everything you've heard tonight this little beastling has probably never asked for a single thing in her past service. "Can I please read with you in your library?" she stares at the floor.

"That would make me _so_ happy." you nearly burst.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. You're Just Like an Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for a little delay in publishing this chapter! It's my birthday today, please do feel free to leave me a review as a birthday present if you feel so inclined!

You're seventeen and too full of yourself; the car pulls up in the driveway and lurking beneath the bravado and hubris of your youth is the terrifying feeling of permanency. Your father reads it expertly and squeezes your shoulder with a knowing little glimmer in his eye, it lasts for less than a moment and then he's off shaking hands and slapping shoulders with Costia's father Alexander. Your mother is dutifully by father's side exchanging pleasantries with Costia's mother and your years of theory are now to be put into practice.

Costia steps out of the back of the car and suddenly everything becomes a manual affair; inhaling and exhaling, blinking, counting the rapid drum beats of your heart thrumming against your ribcage. The bravado has ebbed away and all you're left with is a childish adoration.

You've fallen in love with her thin pale wrists and her long eyelashes already.

"I'll help you with both of your cases," you say softly and toe closer towards her.

She looks you up and down, dissatisfied and uninterested in appearing otherwise, "I do have a  _ pair _ of hands so thank you but that won't be necessary." she brushes you off and side steps you completely.

"Costia," Alexander says in that flustered tone, "I distinctly remember telling you to treat your young mistress with the  _ greatest _ of respect, I did tell you that, did I not?" he inflicts the question with a furrowed brow.

"You were quite clear on it father." she says with a disinterested monotonous drawl. " _ Mistress, _ if you'll excuse me I'm going to my room." she tells you with a scowl in no uncertain terms and you're taken aback by her brashness, before you can stutter some semblance of a reply she walks right around you and makes her way inside.

Alexander turns a beetroot shade of purple and you swear you can see the sweat on his brow evaporate into steam, "You had one job," he bristles at his wife, "all you had to do was prepare her for service… perhaps I've been too lenient with  **both** of you." he leans into her ear and though he's angrier than you can recall ever seeing him before, it quickly dissipates the longer he looks at Costia's mother. "Perhaps I'm being to rash," he mutters and softens, "they are still very young, are they not?" he forces a little chuckle and looks to father for reconfirmation.

"They are." father nods politely, "Lexa, come here and tell your godparents what we discussed earlier."

You resentfully drag your feet, full of embarrassment and disconsolation that the sweet girl you spent so many family vacations with has turned into such an unruly wildling that has brushed you off already. You don't want her anymore, you decide firmly, you won't disgrace your father but the minute her parents drive home you will talk to him at once about calling off the arrangement.

Father taps his foot and you realise they're waiting for you to speak, "Now please Lexa." he encourages you.

"I will be good to your daughter," you blurt and reel off what your father has spent years carefully instilling into your very nature, "I will treat her with respect and spend my life making hers as joy filled as possible and she will never fear the hand that guides her because I will  _ never _ strike her out of anger or jealousy." you promise him with a deep sincerity. "I won't ever hurt her."

Costia's mother visibly deflates with relief and in turn Alexander's shoulders rise with pride, "Thank you very much." he pats your shoulder, "I think Costia is nervous to be away from her mother." he lowers his voice and explains away her behaviour, you get the distinct impression her mother isn't thrilled about the prospect either given her bloodshot eyes and snivelling nose.

You make assurances with her parents that she will visit often and call every day. There's a few minutes of pleasantries and though your mother offers them lunch they bid their farewells and it's for the best — it would be cruel for them to linger round whilst she settles, Alexander decides. On that note, after another round of handshakes, they leave.

"Can you send her back and make some excuse?" you whisper to your father with pleading eyes as soon as their car departs the driveway gates.

"Why would I do that?" he furrows his brow, "She's been saved for you since you were knee-high and a very pretty girl she's grown into may I add." he reminds you.

"Didn't you see the way she spoke to me?"

"I did," he confirms and wraps one of his big arms around you, "she's very spirited, isn't she?" he grins and pinches your cheek.

"I should punish her." you muse and nod your head thoughtfully, but the entire time you look to him for a reaction or thought on the matter.

"Those are decisions you'll have to make Lexa, she's yours to guide and protect now." he reminds you firmly but you hold your tongue and wait for what you know will be a nugget of advice. 

"You know," he softens, "someone much smarter than me once wrote that there's a little bit of dominance in submission and a little bit of submission in dominance, do you know what that means?"

"That sounds stupid."

"It means," he rolls his eyes, "that maybe you'll have to let her have control in the first place so she can decide to give it to you when she's ready." he explains softly and walks you back towards the house. "Submission is a gift, Lexa. It's not a thing to be stolen."

 

…

 

You wake up gasping and heaving for air, your chest shudders for it, the cover is a crumpled pile on the floor and you're aware of the wetness that clings to your body with clothes you've sweated through and turned into wet rags. 

You desperately want to fall back asleep and exist in a state of dreamy posterity with the fond memories of your younger years but that will have to wait. Monday has come around quicker than what you would like and Anya will no doubt turn up for breakfast earlier than what's socially acceptable.

Deep purple and melting orange is the the morning sky; angry and disconsolate to have to bid farewell to the moon. The sun will be up soon and though you wouldn't normally wake anyone up this early, the last two mornings you've heard Clarke quietly shuffling around her room during these earliest of hours and so you assume with good authority that she is most likely awake too.

You slip your trusted sweatshirt over your head and pull on some sweatpants and it's way more casual than any outfit she's seen you in before but you like the idea of her seeing you in something other than grey or navy trousers matched with some kind of dress shirt. It became your uniform for the day after you stopped really caring about how you looked but still recognised you should get dressed in the morning to avoid the sympathy laced prying of those around you.

You pad softly across the corridor towards her room and knock softly on the door.

A moment passes and she opens; she's dressed for the day already in some pants and one of your borrowed sweaters that sits oversized on her frame, sleeves rolled up and collar hanging loose to showcase her thin pale collarbones. 

It astounds you how well she looks compared to how she arrived a few days ago; gone is the dirt and knots in her hair, there's pink in her cheeks and the smell of fresh soap follows her; you see to that personally in the evenings and help her wash her hair. Sometimes she doesn't let you touch her and instead you perch yourself on the shower ledge and let your mind exist in blankness for half an hour.

Though last night she was particularly brave and allowed you a better view of her back, the wounds are still giving her trouble, you've already took the liberty of putting antiseptic ointment and bandages down on Lincoln's shopping list for when he goes into town later today — with any luck she might let you see to them with a tender hand if you bribe her well.

"Miss Lexa?" she says timidly and you pull yourself out of your day dreams.

"Sorry," you shake your head and smile.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry, I, I should have been more careful—"

"You didn't wake me." you raise your hand and reassure the slight girl. You peek around the door frame to catch a little look of the room; the bed is immaculately made and you can see a cloth on the bathroom floor next to a bucket and it dawns on you the soft shuffling you hear in the morning must be her cleaning. 

You make a point of praising her for nearly everything she does just shy of bodily functions. It starts in the morning when you get her for breakfast and she's made her bed — and it always surprises you how neat the sheets are, by lunch time you've told her what a good girl she is for choosing what she wants to eat, by mid afternoon you've lost count of how many little praises she's earned. Today will be no different.

"May I come inside?" you clear your throat.

She steps out of the way and bows her head, she still won't look you in the eye and in spite of being a very naturally obedient girl she still won't call you anything other than Miss Lexa when she does muster up the courage to say more than one word to you. You don't mind that part. It actually makes you quite happy to hear those two words in her mouth.

"What a thoughtful kind person you are," you grin and make a big show of tenderly praising her, "Joan's getting a little older now and it must be such a big help to her when she sees that you've already made your bed and cleaned everything so meticulously. I bet she tells all the other staff how kind and thoughtful you are." you hum and Clarke quietly grins to herself.

Each day her grin has become bolder and you're drunk on it.

"Thank you Miss Lexa," she responds.

"Clarke…"

"Yes Miss Lexa?"

You bite your lip at the sound of the way she says your name but you make sure to keep your expression and infliction gentle, "As of tomorrow you're not to clean a  _ single _ thing. I want you to rest and you can't do that if you're on your hands and knees scrubbing away little one." you gently encourage her with a warm smile.

Clarke is crestfallen; uncertain are the curves of her mouth, her eyes flitting between you and the bathroom, her fingers antsy at her sides. She doesn't speak but it's apparent she takes issue with your request.

"Speak, Clarke." you softly encourage her and sit down on the edge of the bed, "You can always say what you think. It's never wrong to have an opinion — only the manner in which you voice it."

"You said it was a help to the lady who, who works here…" she voices very timidly, "And you said I should treat the people who work for you the same way I would treat you and I, I, when I'm cleaning I feel—" she bites her tongue and you watch as she tenses up, "I'm, I'm very sorry and I will do what I'm told when I'm told without question." she forces the words out. 

You see the vacancy in her eyes, she's disappeared to a safe place within herself and you internally groan. "Did your old master have you clean for him?"

You earn a little nod.

"I understand," you reassure her with a little sigh, "I can't imagine how frightening it must be finding yourself in a home with strangers you don't know… if half my guests were as polite as you, I think I'd have many more friends indeed." you chuckle and hunch over with your elbows on your knees. "I want you to know that I know what it feels like to have everything change Clarke; how scary and...  _ impossible _ it feels. If cleaning in the morning makes you feel helpful—"

"It makes me feel safe." she blurts and looks at you with big watery blues.

"Will you tell me why?"

"If I was cleaning I didn't have to be at his side… sometimes when I have nightmares it makes me feel better, you know, if I'm doing something familiar." she explains with this soft rasp to her voice that perks your ears.

It's a beautiful sound, it elicits a small smile that blooms in the corners of your mouth and you have to stifle and hide it away.

"That makes sense." you recover and nod.

"Plus I like helping." she does a little shrug.

You hate the juxtapose between what you grew up with around your parents and her reality. The thought of a submissive cleaning on her hands and knees for her master makes you bristle; a demeaning and lowly position reserved for the lower classes. No submissive of yours would ever be degraded to cleaning the bathroom floor or polishing the silverware, not whilst your housekeepers still had a pulse at least.

As painful as it is, you remind yourself she isn't your submissive, she is your guest.

If father were here, he'd tell you to stop being so arrogant.

"I'm sorry I made you feel that I was taking away something that gives you comfort," you humbly apologise and she looks as if she might fall over with shock that the word sorry is part of your vocabulary. "How about we compromise—"

"Miss Lexa, I, no, you gave me an instruction and I will do as I'm told, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry."

You bristle with a soft kind of annoyance; it's the second time she's interrupted you and though she isn't your submissive she is still a submissive under your care and you can't stop yourself from correcting her behaviour. 

"Clarke," you eye her sternly, "When I'm talking please don't interrupt me and when it's your turn to speak, I won't interrupt you."

She's immediately felled by your correction with shame that burns her cheeks pink and you watch on as a bystander as she clasps her hands behind her back and bites her wobbling lip. It's a dirty disgusting feeling that swells like a burst pipe within you. It's been so long since you've attempted this intricate art and the sight of her bending to your guidance is exhilarating and repulsing.

"I'm sorry Miss Lexa." she says after a pregnant pause.

"No need," you warmly smile, "Shall we go for a walk before breakfast? There used to be a family of little bitterns that would come and nest in the garden around this time of year, I'd love it if you would accompany me to see if they've returned with their chicks."

"Aren't you going to p-punish me?" her voice cracks nervously.

Her hands are trembling.

She's frightened and you feel ashamed of yourself.

You stand from your hunched position on the edge of the bed and toe a little closer towards her. In four years, taking this little wildling into your home is by far your most elaborate form of self harm. The feelings that fill your chest are violent and unwelcome; you tolerate them anyway and keep pushing on for reasons that you can't explain even to yourself.

"Clarke," you say her name so softly it might be woven from silk, "You are not mine to punish, and even if you were? Well, I don't punish good girls." you warmly grin and she melts in the radiance of your smile. "Now, would you like to come see the birds with me before sunrise?"

"I'd like that very much Mistress."

The words are innocent enough but you feel the breath catch in your throat and your knuckles clench. There's a cyclone in your stomach and it's whipping your insides into a storm and you stand there for seconds that roll forth trying to batten yourself down.

You are not her mistress. You are not her mistress. She is broken and fragile in ways that sicken you; because how could someone  _ ever _ handle someone as precious as Clarke so thoughtlessly. But you are not her mistress. That word burrows under your skin and itches its way through your muscles and you have to stop yourself running away and hiding like a scraggly weakened wolf.

You will never be someone's mistress again.

Never.

"What's wrong, did I, did I do something?"

"Don't call me that again please." you say stiffly and this time when hurt fills her eyes there's a repulsed iota of you that is glad. "I, I need you to understand something about me, Clarke." you breathe tepidly through the words, "I am a dominant and you are a submissive and sometimes, it might  _ feel _ like you are, but you are not here to be in my service. You're not and you can't be because we are both healing." you still the tremble of your voice and keep your restraint.

She looks at you with those big blue eyes, pure and innocent, wheatish hair wisping around the frame of her face. This reckoning is for her own good, you decide, better to get it out the way now than allow her to grow any semblance of attachment to you.

"I didn't—" she stumbles on her words, "I know that." she admits quietly, "I just— I'm not used to calling dominants by their first name." she tells you with shame and embarrassment that pulses from her. "I can call you Lexa if you prefer." she grimaces on the sound of your name.

"Miss Lexa is fine." you concede and force the dissipating cyclone away. "Shall we?" you nod your head towards the bedroom window that overlooks the western portion of the garden.

She smiles and opens the door for you.

Miss Lexa is manageable, you reconfirm in your head.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Your Skin Makes Me Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful support! In response to a common question; I think I may have used the A/B/O tags in the wrong context -- this story is very much inspired from that universe as the D/S dynamic is societal but there are quite a few key differences (namely the lack of GP and cycles.) so I apologise if anyone was disappointed!

Though you were most certain that Anya and Octavia would arrive at some ungodly bleary-eyed hour of the morning; it's nearly lunch by the time her silver mustang snaked up the drive. It's bad form, you think. It absolutely throws you off your game. Anya always used to be so regimented and precise in her ways before she took Octavia as her own last year. Even when you were both little girls she had military-esque timing.

You nearly called to check there wasn't a pile-up on the highway, but then sure enough she appeared, apologising; languid eyed and glowing submissive in tow.

"Lexa," she groans and climbs out of the car, "I would have gotten here sooner but we were... _tied up,_ unfortunately."

Between the words of her rushed apology for running late — explaining some contrived white lie to cover her true reasons; you expertly read the pinkness of Octavia's cheeks and the way her chest tumultuously puffs for breath under the ardour of post-climax and smirk at the knowledge of what they were most certainly doing.

Octavia catches you peering inquisitively at her.

She's a beautiful girl, a trophy someone without good breeding might say, she lives and breathes to please Anya and for that you love her like a friend you've known all your life. Anya is a gentle mistress, tender handed and softly spoken for the most part; there were many lonely years before Octavia fell into her lap, quite literally. Anya always bores you with the story of how she was three thousand words into a case report in a coffee shop in town when the most beautiful girl she'd ever seen tripped over a coffee table and landed on her knees right in front of her.

"Lexa?" Anya repeats, shaking you from your thoughts. "Did you hear anything I just said?"

You open your mouth and close it again, "It's fine… really, no problem." you blush and shake your head.

"She definitely wasn't listening, Ma'am." Octavia whispers to her mistress; glancing at you out the corner of her eyes with a wry little smile.

Anya grins and pulls the girl into her body with an arm wrapped around her waist, kissing the crown of her hair, "You're very observant, but, don't forget what happens to girls who forget their manners." she hums in her ear and you roll your eyes at them both.

"If you're both finished I'm _starving_ for lunch… it'll be sunset before I get a meal at this rate." you bristle and set the pace towards the house. "Octavia," you call over your shoulder at the raven haired laithe of a girl.

"Yeah?" she calls back. Even with your back turned you know Anya's probably nudged her with an expectant little look. _"Yes Miss Lexa?"_ she corrects herself.

"I think Clarke is in the library reading Jane Austen, could you go and keep her company before she turns into Elizabeth Bennet." you smirk at the idea, "I'd very much like to talk to your mistress before we sit down for lunch."

You open the french doors for them and Octavia obediently looks to her mistress before leaving for the library. It leaves a thick feeling of envy in your stomach; having a heavenly creature who looks to you with wanting eyes that need your approval. You shake the feeling off, reminding yourself of the burdens that come with such responsibility.

"Go," Anya leans down and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek, "Have fun, be nice, I'll come and collect you both in an hour." Octavia earned another little kiss just for existing, "Be nice, Octavia." she tells her in no uncertain terms with stern eyes that bloom into existence from past recollections of Octavia's spirited ways; like the time she cursed at you during a particularly heated game of Monopoly. It's hardly your fault you always win — art imitates life after all.

Anya certainly didn't see the humour in it, and neither did Octavia when her gentle mistress didn't have the patience to wait until they were home to take her over her knee.

"She's a beautiful girl… very spirited." you remind Anya and can't help but think of another beautiful spirited girl you once had the pleasure of knowing intimately.

"I know," she sighs and never takes her eyes off the submissive climbing the stairs; shoulders poised and ponytail swinging from her pace. Anya stares at her with a particular intensity and you feel voyeuristic for watching. "I'm a lucky woman." she finally breathes.

"She's lucky too," you remind her and set off towards your parlour room, "she certainly needed a dominant as masterful in patience as you are." you shrug your shoulders into hunches.

"I'm only masterful because she taught me to be."

"Is that the polite way of saying she's a little shit?" you tease with a grin and Anya gives you a warning look that becomes a combination of flared nostrils and tensing jaw muscles. "I'm kidding," you push her shoulder, "mostly." you murmur.

It's been awhile since you've even bothered to pay a visit to the parlour. It was your father's favourite room for obvious reasons; the room always smelt of his musky oak cologne and the bar was always stocked with the good whiskey that Indra hid from the kitchen for special occasions. Father prefered the curtains closed and the room cast in a gloomy darkness, it was here he gathered his thoughts, but one of the maids must have disturbed this sanctuary during a deep clean of the house.

The curtains are wide open; looking out over the circular fountain that sat in front of the property. The sun's beaming through and for a moment; fleeting and unwanted, you feel like you can't breathe. Someone has crept into this room and washed away the smell of your father's cologne and cleaned away the dust he spent a lifetime accumulating and you _can't_ breathe.

Instead you blink and stare into nothingness.

"Lexa," Anya says softly and wraps a hand over your shoulder. "It's okay, talk to me?"

You are not a submissive; you are not _her_ submissive, you are a dominant and your inability to posture and hide your indifference sits with you as a yet another failure. Entirely too late, you swallow back whatever it is that's turning your insides to gasoline and press forward.

"Nothing, for a second there I thought I might have accidentally thrown my reading glasses out when I cleared my draws in the study but I'm sure I'm just overthinking." you lie and curtly smile. "Please, come sit down with me, I've had a very interesting weekend…" you pull out the chair for your friend.

"I had my suspicions."

"She's a very wonderful girl."

Anya can't even begin to temper the curling grin that becomes her entire face; just with that simple expression you regret opening your mouth in the first place. Her smile is too presumptive and implies things that have no basis and she has yet to even open her mouth yet.

You lean over the table, peering at her with the full brunt of your foreboding; "Anya, don't go there." you warn her sternly.

"Fine," she shrugs and backs off. "Thank you again, by the way, I did make a couple of phone calls over the weekend and there's a female care facility in Des Moines that might have a room become available soon. Fingers crossed." she illustrates with both her hands.

"Fingers crossed." you reply tepidly.

"How has she been doing?"

"Probably a lot better if you'd of told me just how troubled she was… do you know how many times I've put my foot in it this weekend?" you cringe; shoulders nearly shrugging up to your ears as you clutch your eyes. "She's gotten much better at talking though — this morning we discussed the different birds that migrate through winter; riveting conversation as always."

Anya blinks and stares at you.

"I know, I know," you grimace, "you brought her here to heal — not so I can bore her to death with ornithology—"

"Six weeks."

"What?"

"Clarke has been in assisted living for six weeks since we rescued her and she hasn't spoken once, not to me, not to anyone." Anya inhales a little breath and rolls her eyes, as if to say, of course it would be you who would magically get the girl to talk. "Ornithology?" she stares at you.

"I guess she likes birds." you blink and shrug. "She said swans were her favourite."

"She's _definitely_ been talking to you?"

"Yes, Anya." you grow a little more frustrated, "Unless I've suddenly developed neurosis it would seem that's the most logical explanation."

"You haven't read her file, have you?" she glares at you knowingly.

Of course you haven't. You told yourself you'd get round to it. You kept it on your desk. In the early hours of the morning when you woke; you tempted sneaking to your study and reading it, but no matter how much you told yourself over the last few days you'd get round to it — you still haven't.

You're not sure why, on some level it feels invasive, on some level you feel like Clarke should get to talk to you about those things when she's good and ready for you to know where she came from. You know you should read it though.

"Why are you scared, Lexa?"

At that question bile rises into the praecipe of your throat; to be scared of something is half way towards admitting that you care a great deal, which you don't, or so you tell yourself. "I'm not!" you bite.

"I thought her being here might help you as much as it could help her, but if it's too much… if you feel like you're getting in too deep…"

"I'm not." you cut her off. "And thank you for your concern but I don't _need_ help. I'm fine just as I am. Clarke is _wonderful_ but I am not in the market for another submissive and I have made that just as clear to her as I have made it to you."

Her hands turn into antsy things that dance along the ridge of her knees; full of a quiet kind of reckoning that you know she won't hold back because she never does. You wish just this once she'd find the strength. She almost shudders trying not to say anything but, you suppose, that's entirely the innate fault within being a dominant; the feeling that lives deep within you that you are right and the world must submit to your will.

"Costia is dead." she says slowly, as if you could ever have forgotten. "I know it hurts—"

"You know nothing, _girl."_ you inflict the words with a snarl and watch Anya flinch with shame at the name.

There was a time when you were young teenagers, foolish and full of a willful kind ignorance when you both thought your relationship could be more than a platonic friendship of equals. It never could have worked; though she is softer and less forthright in her tendencies; Anya is dominant to the core of herself as are you.

But when your father found Anya kneeling at the foot of your bed, all that stopped him calling her parents and inevitably having her shipped off to a reconditioning programme was your assurances that it would end and that you were ready to take Costia as yours.

It was the last time Anya was allowed in the house before your father's death.

"I'm sorry," you say delicately and still the shuddering of your chest. "I shouldn't have said that."

"You shouldn't." Anya agrees solemnly; full of a quiet embarrassment.

"You know I would never say anything in front of—"

Anya flashes you a glare, "If you ever breathe a word of it to Octavia, rest assure I will make your demise look like a tragic accident." she hisses.

"There's the Anya I know," you chuckle softly. "How did we ever think it could have worked? I mean, look at us?" you roll your eyes.

"Teenage hormones, self loathing on my part, arrogance on yours… take your pick." she reminds you and leans into her chair. "I'd rather not talk about it if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course." you nod your head.

There's something innately wrong about the thought of Anya having ever allowed you to best her. The memory of her with her hands behind her back, shuddering against her natural deposition whilst you poorly mastered her in ways reserved for mistress and submissive. It makes you cringe. You can't even imagine how Anya must feel about it.

But that doesn't mean you regret it; because as there is submission in dominance there is dominance in submission, and for the three months you both fell victim to absurdity she tutored you expertly with little experiences that shaped you.

"Stop thinking about it." she reads you expertly with a scowl.

You chuckle and shake your head, "Sorry." you sigh.

The conversation dribbles on; small talks about business and sports, you manage to find a bottle of your father's hidden whiskey behind a vent cover near the window and you both share a glass and indulge in memories of your shared youth.

Anya's father was the editor-in-chief of three magazines owned by Arcon publishing and once your parents saw the little α marks form on each of your wrists — it was decided you would be most suitable friends for one another. Though you have been known to despise each other on occasion, for the most part, you've been inseparable ever since.

"Mistress," Octavia sticks her head around the door after half an hour of conversation with your friend. Her eyes are big apologetic things, she knows better than to interrupt; she was told she'd be collected in an hour but here she is — peering at Anya as if she needs her in eyeline in order to breathe.

It's a strange affair to watch; but watch it you do.

"Come here." Anya beckons her girl sternly and sets down her glass.

Octavia obliges and without the need to be told she sinks to her knees beside Anya's chair and rests her head in her lap. "Hi." she says softly and closes her eyes; happy and content to be in her service.

Though Anya started stern voice and bird mouthed; Octavia's cheek rubbing along the length of her thigh is too much. Her lips soften into a soft slope of a grin and her hand is busy stroking her submissive's hair. "Did I not tell you to wait until I came to get you?" she recovers and says with a stern infliction.

"I'm sorry Mistress."

"I told you to wait." Anya reiterates.

"You did, but I missed you so much." her lips quirk into a pout.

You notice Clarke lurking by the door and you pretend not to; enthralled and intrigued to see her response. She watches them with an envious look by the door frame; fingers thrumming against her sides with an antsy rhythm. You want to beckon her over but perhaps that would be cruel, as it is in your nature to exert control, it is within hers to want to be controlled and you know with an absolute certainty you will not allow her to kneel.

"Imagine what Lexa must think of me," Anya nods towards you and stirs your attention, "behaving like this… I expect better from you little one." Anya sniffs in that dour way and it's all it takes to crucify Octavia.

"I can go back upstairs—"

"That doesn't excuse your behaviour."

Anya is far more gentle than any other dominant you know; much more willing to bend and fit around her submissive's needs and that impresses you above all else the way she doesn't need to exert more than a wisp of force.

In Anya's home spankings are reserved for the worst of the worst offences and everything else can be cured with creativity; the line writing, time out in the corner, hands on mistress's knees in silence type of creativity and though Octavia is unruly and rarely does as she's told. You know from the glimmer of excitement in Anya's eyes that she wouldn't have it any other way — she was always one for a challenge.

"I'm sorry Mistress, I won't do it again." Octavia promises and nuzzles her cheek deeper into Anya's knee. "I just missed you so, _so_ much." she reiterates.

"Such a brat," Anya rolls her eyes and chuckles. "You are the biggest brat that has _ever_ lived." she picks on her playfully and is well beyond keeping up her stern pretense anymore.

You watch Clarke flinch at the word out of the corner of your eyes; her antsy fingers ball into fists; wrists flexing, her eyes clench close and something is terribly wrong, you turn back to Anya to voice your concern but they are still settling their little dispute.

"Are you going to punish me?" Octavia whines softly and tries to worm her way out of this.

"When we get home," Anya confirms tenderly, "I think I'll have to whip you into shape."

Clarke explodes out of the door so fast you don't catch it until she's already half way across the parlour; her teeth gnashing and her pupils fixed on her prey.

"Clarke!" you call her name but it's too late.

She launches herself at Anya like a fired bullet; arms reaching out, tackling her straight out of her chair with a force you had no idea someone so slight and fragile could ever possess. There's a loud thud as they fall to the floor. You get round the table and move past a terrified Octavia to find Clarke already scrambling on top of Anya.

"Please, please, please, please,"

She mumbles over and over again, her fists wound tight in the lapels of Anya's leather jacket. You can't make out what she's saying, she has Anya pinned beneath her like a ragdoll.

"Don't whip her, she's a good girl, she's a g-good girl, don't hurt her, please."

You wrap your arms underneath Clarke and haul her up — it terrifies her; she thrashes in your arms and you hold on for dear life. Anya peers up at you in shock and the fact she's conscious means you have to worry about one less thing.

"Clarke it's okay."

You whisper the words in her ear but she is having an episode and your words are no use. Instead, all you can do is hold her to your chest, you pull her to the floor with you and wrap your legs over hers so she can't kick and you keep her there for what feels like minutes; her tears dripping down and scalding your arms.

You hear Anya reassure her submissive that she's not hurt and you breathe a sigh of relief, with any luck this won't count as strike number four, with any luck she won't send Clarke to a secure home… because whatever it is doesn't sound pleasant and now that you're confronted with the possibility of her being taken away from your ward; you're winded by the fact that you don't want her going anywhere.

"Don't hurt her!" Clarke wails as Anya gets up off the ground with an arm slung over Octavia's shoulder.

You have to tighten your grip to stop her; there's thin red lines across the back of her sweater and you grit your teeth and huff with disappointment that you allowed this to transpire. The wounds on her back have opened up under the ardour of her working muscles and that is your fault; you should have saw this transpiring.

"Clarke," Anya says tenderly, "Clarke look at me."

She is a whimpering mess in your arms but she still has enough energy to give you a struggle. You should really do more cardio, you realise too late. Anya inches closer and Clarke thrashes harder against you, attempting to lunge at the other dominant.

"Clarke!" you bark and she is suddenly still in your arms, chest shuddering, yelping as you pull her back against your chest. It makes you feel sick to hurt her. But something has snapped within you and you're in mistress mode — your control masterfully exerted to bring her in line.

"Don't let her use a whip." she begs you softly, "Please, please, I'll, I'll b-be good… don't let her hurt anyone."

Octavia wraps a hand around her mistress's shoulder and gives her a gentle look, she steps towards you both, she's slow and slight and Clarke doesn't perceive her as a threat, she sags boneless into your grip with exhaustion and doesn't thrash around this time.

"Clarke, look at me," Octavia whispers and guides her chin up with her fingers, "Anya is one of the good ones — she would never hurt me, you don't have to worry about that." she promises the other submissive matter of fact. "She works for the department because she wants to help submissives… not hurt them."

Clarke looks to you for reassurance, she cranes her neck, her eyes desperately searching to find yours. Loosening your grip ever so slightly, you allow her to shift and get a better look at you.

"She's telling you the truth." you nod down at her.

"She said," Clarke licks her lips, "She s-said, she was going to, to, whip her and I—"

Anya covers her mouth, guilty as she's ever looked. It sickens her and you watch her fight down the bile in her throat at the thought of ever laying a finger on Octavia like that. "You thought I was going to whip her?"

Clarke nods timidly.

Anya opens and closes her mouth, she looks between you and Octavia; eyes lingering on her submissive with a tender kind of expression. "You know I would never—"

"Don't!" Octavia softened and clutched at her hands, "I know you would _never_ hurt me."

You've all but released your clasped hands at this point; Clarke sags against your chest, weeping, blushing and simmering with a quiet embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, so sorry, please," she bites the insides of her mouth and a long whimpering noise escapes her lungs and throttles you, "Please don't make me go back, Miss Anya."

Her whimpering voice snips at the last of your self-imposed restraint, "Clarke, go upstairs and wait in your room for me with your hands behind your back." You say with the stern infliction of a mistress; it's for her benefit and for that reason you'll do it. She needs the reassurance of someone telling her what to do, how to exist, how to survive, how to _be._

"Right now." you add softly.

She slips into the subservient space where her submissive nature existed and does as you order her to do; head hung low, chest vibrating, picking at the skin on her wrist. You know expertly what she needs and you will give it to her, temporarily, platonically, you'll help guide her if it's what she needs to get better. If it's what she needs to feel safe.

There's a silence that falls the room for a moment.

"I guess you were right," Anya blinked and spoke first. "She's definitely talking."

You flop backwards on the floor and splay yourself out with a deep sigh, "What happens now?"

"Lexa…" Anya trailed off, "I have an obligation to report this… she attacked a government employee."

"Only because she thought you were going to whip me." Octavia glared at her mistress with a raised brow and you want to warn her she's treading on thin ice but you're limit is protecting one testy submissive at a time.

"Anya don't report this, she won't survive in secure unit — she's safe here."

"What if she attacks you?" Anya crosses her arms.

You shrug and look to your hands, "I've had worse." you whisper, and you can't believe you're doing this, you're about to somersault right over this sacred boundary you've upheld for years all for the sake of a scrawny girl with eyes as blue as cornflower. "I have a plan."

"Really? Because I would love to hear how—"

"One hour."

"What?"

You stand up, because sat on the floor is hardly the place you want to make this proposition. It's impossible to gain respect or be taken seriously when you're below somebody's eye-level, you're certain it's the reason why people treat the homeless and vagrant as if they're invisible.

You lick your lips and stand as tall as you can, "If she wants me to... I will be her mistress for one hour a day, platonically and temporarily, until you find somewhere permanent for her to go. I think she needs to feel secure and I… I _think_ it'll help me to." you grit your teeth and nearly choke on the words.  
  



	5. You Float Like a Feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [I have a new Tumblr so if you guys want to give me some prompts I'd be more than happy to write you one shots or answer any questions you might have at diaphonouswords.tumblr.com and that goes for all femslash pairings too -- especially Holstein, Noralise, Clexa and Shoot.]

There's an eery silence as you stand in the hallway; pacing backwards and forwards, thinking of what you will say and what you will do. It's all futile you think, because dominance is a practical affair and less of a philosophical game. Though if it were a game you've certainly been retired from the sport for a while.

You find Clarke pressed into the corner, silent, shuddering with these tiny shoulders that just crumple like aluminium under the weight of her conscience. It dawns on you that for all your brooding, for all your misplaced pessimism and self-doubt, this is the right decision. To leave her without someone to tell her how to exist; throwing her in the deep end to wrestle with the grand idea of being entirely alone, it's a cruel thing; wicked and callow in the highest degree.

Costia always said the thing she loved about you the most was how much you knew and how much you didn't; the juxtaposition between the two was where the greatest adventures lived, or so she thought. You were her great pretender, the master of the world, the source of all things born of wit and curiosity — and you were never too proud to let her teach you the small things that escaped you either. 

It was at her hands you learned how to be gentle, how to listen, how to hold a fragile wild thing between your palms and tame it.

Now retrospectively, you resent the arts she tutored you in so masterfully because staring at Clarke's shivering shoulders, the muscles quivering underneath her bloodied back like hummingbirds live beneath her skin, her ribs expanding and contracting with the low angry manacled sound that emanates from the back of her throat; you now know something of how a library must feel when it looks at a fireplace to see love poems being used for kindling.

"Clarke," you say her name softly. 

In return she stills the quiet vibration in her shoulders and stands with a stiffness that locks her joints. You try desperately not to look, the sight makes you want to retch the blackness out of your heart, but between and over her shoulder blades are these thin red lines that criss-cross one another and you think it might be the most sorrowful thing you've ever seen.

"Miss Lexa," she whispers your name, "I'm,  _ please, _ I'm so sorry—"

"It's okay." you breathe and you want to clutch your chest to stop the gnawing pain that's eating away at you, somehow though you fortify yourself and tilt your chin up with a natural dominance you rarely give in to. "I think, I think we're all partly to blame for this, Clarke." you muster the words tenderly lest you be the cause of more turmoil for the hummingbird who has found herself in your ward.

"Can I turn around?"

"Please do," you answer tenderly and blink. "I want you to come and sit down. I'm going to talk, and all you have to do is just listen, okay?"

She nods and wipes her eyes, it's a defiant beautiful thing; she perches herself and though you know, _you know,_ she is terrified, she trusts you and so she sits.

"I'm," you look to the ceiling as if the words in your throat have made their escape for the stars and got stuck in the rafters instead, "I'm not used to this." you almost scowl at the absurdity and shake your head, "I know it's hard, feeling like you suddenly have a million decisions to make and all you want is someone to take control so you can just… exist for five minutes."

She glances at you with cornflower blue eyes, as if to say; and what of it do you know?

"I just want to let you know that if it's what you want I would be happy to take control… just for an hour a day so that you don't feel entirely out of your comfort zone."

"You'll be my—"

"Please don't use that word," you cut her off quickly before she can say those two-syllables that fill you with a poisonous dread, "but yes… I suppose so." you concede and scratch your neck. "I thought perhaps you would find it helpful having time where you can take some comfort in not having to make all the decisions, platonically, temporarily, until you feel more comfortable; though it's your decision entirely."

The pale wheat of her hair and the contours of her smile are highlighted by the leyline of light cut through you both from the sun settling over the gardens beyond the crystalline window. It relieves you. 

Breathe again, you will yourself, breathe again; she's smiling and the hard part is over.

You lick your lips, "Do you want that?" you pluck up the courage.

"So much," she says mildly, looking at you with innocent maiden-fair eyes that set you alight, the lip of her sweater shirked up to her teeth. "I'd like it very much, Miss Lexa." she reconfirms with an eager nod.

At that you find yourself nodding too, entirely uncomfortable, hands on your hips, suddenly without an inclination of what you should do next. "That's good." you agree and cringe at the vapidity of your words.

"Erm, would it be okay, if we, you know—" 

She stutters over herself and you take this opportunity to feel out the template of authority you've long since abandoned, "It's okay," you place your hand on the small of her back, and it isn't okay, because she flinches like you've just burned her with a cigarette; and though you should take your hand away, you don't; you leave it there for her to settle into. 

"Tell me what you want and it shall be yours." you promise her.

"Boundaries." she forces out the word with her eyes clenched closed, "Please don't touch my back without asking me." she tells you quietly.

You rip your hand away so fast you now know something of how a hummingbird must feel. "Sorry," you force an apologetic smile and wipe your clammy hands against your trousers, you're grateful they're black today, you can feel the nervous perspiration from your hands dampening your legs.

"I'm sorry," she shakes her head, "I'm… I'm not a good girl." she tells you earnestly with a crack in her voice.

She says it so quietly your ears have to strain to confirm that she said it, you replay it in your head, it's the most sorrowful thing you think you've ever heard. It leaves a ropeable violent feeling in the pit of your stomach — you're going to make mountains out of the suffering received by the person responsible for her pain; mountains and jagged cliffs of misery they never knew possible, because a jail cell is not big enough to contain the evil it takes to break someone the way Clarke has been broken.

No.

No you won't.

Clarke is not yours, she is entirely her own; and in these moments she will lend herself to you with the greatest trust that you will care for her like a precious thing to be reverently adored and that will be enough.  _ It will be all. _

"I thought it might be appropriate if you were in my service for one hour a day," you find yourself licking your lips, "just enough to help you but too little to be self-indulgent on my part," you muse and rub your neck as if it'll help absolve you of the gnawing that's felled your windpipe, "but I think I would like for you to be in my service for the rest of today so we can talk through what boundaries exist. I can take care of you today. I would like that."

She doesn't speak; not a single noise falls from her lips, she slips into the space where her servility lives and with tender shaking hands, she toys with the rim of her sweater. Your lips purse, you go to ask what she's doing, but it becomes redundant. She tries to pull the sweater over her head and it hits you like a fist in your solar plexus.

"Clarke, don't do that, stop," you demand softly and wrap your hand around her shaking fist, "What are you doing?"

"You, you said," she looks to the floor, embarrassed, "you said you wanted me to be in your service." her voice trembled nervously.

"Dearest," you cover your mouth and blink away a stinging sensation that bites at your eyes, "no, sweetheart, not like that." you reassure her and rub your thumb over her hand. "There is one truth I am  _ determined _ that you will understand before you leave my home, and it is this; you are a good girl, you are a good girl who is smart and daring, and you can be anything you want to be in this world, my love. I want most for you above all else to never feel like you  _ ever _ have to be small and quiet."

The relief that overcomes her is palpable and though you want to take her in your arms; to hold her and quell this storm, you don't, you sit there with hands between your legs holding on to your very bones whilst she figures out how to weave flowers over scars that exist in places no one can see.

"Can I," she bites her lip, "can I kneel for you?"

You stiffen for a moment and though you don't want her to, you find yourself saying yes, you find yourself agreeing mindlessly because this is about her needs. "Only during play and never outside of this room." you tell her firmly.

You're certain she's too drunk with relief to have heard any of what followed; on shaky-legs that move with a lingering uncertainty you find yourself moving to the armchair in the corner that faces the window. "Come here," you beckon her and breathe.

Chest heaving with cathartic sobs, she sinks to her knees beside you and buries her cheek against your thigh and the willingness, no, the  _ need _ is something you have no experience in. 

Hold her, you tell yourself, make this better; you scream it at your heart.

"Good girl," you say with the infliction of a mistress.  _ "My good girl." _

She shudders with gratification and melts into your lap; tears dampening you leg, arching her neck so more skin is available for your fingers to graze against in a slow kind of rhythm.

Your stomach grumbles but you're hungry for something else and with a reluctant admittance, you know you have longed for this. You have died a thousand deaths every night hating yourself for your very nature but your dominance greets you; arms wrapped around you, red cheeked, shouldering you like an old friend.

"Put your hands on my knees, little one."

She moves in front of you, kneeling, hands on your kneecaps; her face is softened with joy and she is lighter just for existing beneath your sitting figure. In true dominant fashion you leave her to exist there with her own thoughts in peace whilst you do the same. 

It's a beautiful day, from this seat you can see the centre of town on the horizon and you watch cars that are nothing but little dots flit around and for the first time in longer than you can remember, you are not envious, you are sympathetic, because sitting here with this heavenly creature bowing for you is a paradise unto itself.

You spend what you know is at least an hour doing nothing more than sitting here in a peaceful silence taking great pleasure in the sensation of Clarke's nose grazing the side of your knee as she rests herself there.

"Little one," you clear your throat, "I want you to run a bath, two parts hot water one part cold, fill it with bubble bath and call for me when you're in it. I want you to let me clean the wounds on your back, will you let me do that?" you cup her cheek.

She's between your knees peering at you with tentative blue eyes, weighing you up, but to your impress, she never denies you.

Her mouth opens and closes again, "Yes Commander." she submits.

Commander.

She disappears and you want to burst out laughing at the title; you want to laugh until you cry, it's an insidious feeling; a symphony of pain and a lingering happiness that sits underneath your skin and you swear you can see it blurring together and moving through your veins.

You never talk about your military service, though they were undoubtedly the happiest years of your life. They were ironically the years before tragedy came, they were the years when your father wrapped his solid arms around your uniformed figure and toted you around the reception room at Christmas telling everyone who would listen that you were his brilliant daughter who proudly served as a Lieutenant aboard USS Avalon.

They were the years you came back from tour and Costia fell weak-kneed into your arms in sheer joy that you came home to her with your beautiful face still in one piece. You would stick your white and black cap over her head and carry her to the motorcade made up of well-wishing family, teasing her the entire way there because your tour was a peacekeeping mission in Senegal but as far as she was concerned you may as well have been bare-knuckle boxing ISIS militants in Raqqa.

You left after four years service, hardly a hero, still wet behind the years.

You tilt your head over your shoulder and the sight pulls at your heartstrings; there is a picture of you in your black dress uniform on the side table, proud and bird mouthed with flags draped behind you, twenty-two and young enough to still be conceptual at best.

You wonder how many times Clarke has looked at that picture in curiosity, how many times she's wondered who you are, how many times she's wanted to ask you questions; you're glad she never has.

"I'm ready, Miss Lexa." she beckons you.

Though Commander has a ring to it that fills you with a want for laughter — Miss Lexa will do just fine too.  
  



	6. In a Beautiful World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr and give me some writing prompts please -- I want to write you a thing! www.diaphonouswords.tumblr.com

Quiet is the night; it yields an intrusive kind of thoughtfulness like spring rain across valleys green. Clarke sticks in your thoughts like craft glitter, mainly because an hour a day is _barely_ enough though you’re nowhere near prepared to delve further into why. On your best days you end the sessions early and on your worst you hang on for tender minutes past the stroke of the hour clinging to the sight of her doing happy mundane things.

She talks more during you’re sessions, small things at first, she told you about a doll she had when she was seven years old with pink cheeks that remind her of yours. No less than a day later she told you about a creative writing class she once took; she said she liked renaissance the best because modern poetry felt vapid. She used that word. Vapid. It sounded beautiful in her smiling mouth.

You still hadn’t read her case report but tonight was different; tonight you tossed and turned amongst crumpled damp sheets and against your utmost determination to remain blind to the truths bound within the coffee stained file stuffed in your desk draw — you relented, you crept downstairs and you read every word like a sibling reading a diary; disgusted and repulsed, unable to stop yourself.

The house sleeps and you sit awake, mortified as you are, gingerly thumbing the cover of the file on your desk. Throw it away, you tell yourself, maybe then you can undo what you saw.

But you know what you know, you bit the apple and now the curse of knowledge is another boulder in the wagon you drag behind you. 

Little more than a child of fifteen when she was taken out of the foster system and handed off to a family in presumably good standing with a son a little older than her age, they became fast friends and that turned into something else entirely, he moved her out to a cabin by the coal pits his parents owned as soon as she turned sixteen.

There’s reports and scrap pieces of paper with telephone numbers and small details jotted down — you imagine concerned neighbours and good samaritans calling the department in hushed tones about a girl they saw in town with a blackened eye or loud pleas coming from the cabin in the wee hours of the morning.

It fits in Anya’s case report — people cared at first, they called, the police visited and he got off with slaps to the wrist and she was twice as black and half as blue the next morning because of it. The calls stopped, the abuse continued. It curdles your stomach.

Behind the paperwork there’s catalogued hospital records neatly bound together, colour coded at the top, dated and signed by physicians. You quickly realise that red is the worse, red is overnight stays and reset bones, and though you can’t bring yourself to count them all out there’s at least two red sticky notes for every orange and blue. It dawns on you that the same name is signed at the bottom of every hospital release form.

His name is Roan Winters.

In the official paperwork he’s the defendant, the dominant, the accused, the perpetrator — but right there along the dotted line is his name clear as day. Roan Winters. It stings the inside of your mouth, it’s pungent, it leaves you morose and clenched handed. You know with _absolute_ certainty that you are never going to forget that name for as long as you live.

You imagine him in the evidence pictures of her purple ribs; you see his calloused knuckles laying into her. You see his snarled teeth in her busted lip. His cold eyes in the scrawny bones that jut out against her translucent skin. You retch into the waste basket at the side of your desk and though your chest shudders and your gut heaves, all you rid yourself of is long drips of spittle.

five years she endured at his hand.

There’s little by way of statement from Clarke, a single transcript of a conversation with Anya in fact. She didn’t say anything in it, but you read little details between asterisks, details like she nodded and shook her head at different points, that she cried when Anya asked if he ever did things to her that she didn’t want him to do.

It’s the latter that tips you over the edge and empties the small contents of you stomach into the waste basket.

You tortured yourself for the best part of an hour before you couldn’t stomach anymore. You turn out the lights, closed the door, promising yourself you will find a way to wash the pictures out of your eyes. You climb the stairs to weather the rest of what you know to be a sleepless night.

“Light reading, Miss Lexa?”

You snap your eyes across the hallway to see her hunched figure sitting on the carpet outside her door. You open your mouth and close it again, though it’s late, you are not her dominant in this hour and so you have no business telling her what to do or how to cure her nightmares.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you know what I was reading.”

“Mmm, the sound of you dry heaving gave that away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be… everyone’s always sorry, always apologising, it feels stupid to me.” she sighed and hung her head back, “Sorry is something you say after the fact, like, _sorry I stepped on your toe_ or _sorry I wasn’t listening,_ I’m still living through it. I’m still stuck here at night with my toe getting stood on.”

“Come on,” you arch your neck towards the staircase, “I need a drink and you need an ear, no reason we can’t be productive and kill two birds with one stone.”

Your legs move with a natural muscle memory towards the parlour but you catch yourself and change course to the reception room in the south of the property. It’s a brisk walk, the parquet may as well be ice beneath your bare hopping feet. You dig your hands into the pockets of your sweatshirt and notice that Clarke is unfazed by the chill — you want to ask why but you know it won’t illicit any kind of good answer.

Carpet comes quickly, and then heat, the radiators always stay on in the vast reception room to stop damp consuming the wood. You’re sure the heating bills would earn furrows in your brow if you ever cared to look at them, but right now you couldn’t be more grateful for the impracticality of it.

“Drink?” you ask quietly though your voice still echoes around the empty room. You pull the glass decanter off of the side board with one hand and two crystal glasses with the other whilst she foots closer towards you.

“Scotch, right?” she asks softly whilst you pour a small pony in each glass.

“Loaded question,” you shrug, “but your assumptions are absolutely correct.”

“I’ve never drank before…”

“Here,” you push the glass in her hand, “I think you earned one.”

She accepts it gladly and you move to the seat that bends around the bay window, she tucks one of the pillows in her lap and exhales a content little noise.

“What are you thinking about?” you push.

“Nothing.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” you roll your eyes and pull a deep glug of whiskey into the sides of your cheeks, “I keep thinking about what I read in that report—”

“Please,” she winces and bites her mouth, “Is it okay if we don’t? I know it’s an interesting story but it’s not my only one.”

She is beautiful like this; you know little about this strange companion of yours but everyday she shows you with wincing eyes and uncertain noises which tumble out of her mouth that she is tired of the shadows of pain and loss that she was born to. She is rising, she is dragging, she is clawing, she is inching towards better days and maybe it’s your turn to stretch your aching legs.

You purse your lips, “Other stories?”

“Tons of them.”

“Such as?”

“Well…” she shrugs and looks to the stars, “I, was, well, I though that—”

“You can ask me for anything.” you reassure her and hold back the words _little one_ from tumbling out of your mouth.

“I know it’s just hard, Miss.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I wish you knew how much it pleased me when you ask me for small things. It makes me feel very useful.”

“Will you tell me something good about yourself? I feel like you know all these awful things about me and I don’t know anything about you.”

You gingerly flex your fingers and lean back into the chill of the window frame. The request is simple enough, but still you find yourself working for a response, what accomplishments can you lay claim to other than getting dressed in the mornings?

“I work in publishing,” you say confidently, “have you heard of Harper magazine?”

“You work for Harper magazine?” she blinks at you.

“I own it.”

“You own it?”

“The New York Review, Discovery, Economist’s Report and Collar Life, though if you have any taste I’m assuming you won’t be familiar with that one. Arcon Publishings owns all of them and more.”

“And you own Arcon Publishings?” she asks quietly.

“According to my email signature.”

“Impressive.”

She grins and takes her first tentative sip of the liquor in her hand. You want to chuckle. Her face has twisted into a morose expression and her nose pinches with the aftertaste.

She catches you smirking at her, “I don’t think scotch is my drink.” she admits softly.

You find yourself falling into a lush state of intrigue with your strange and beautiful companion; taking tiny sips to make your drink last long into the night so you can continue your little interactions about happy irrelevant things like the tortoise you had when you were six that ran away. 

She laughed and you decided quite certainly that the giggle you earned was an achievement you could hold on to and remind yourself of when you slept tonight.

“Lexa,” she peers at you whilst you find your last sip.

It’s the first time she’s used your name. small and angular, slim and willowy, she leans into her words and though you sorely miss the sound of the prefix attached to your name you have no business correcting her.

“Mmm?”

“I was wondering, if, erm, well—”

“God we have our work cut out with you, don’t we?” you grin.

She blushes and rolls her eyes, “I know that you said we’re only allowed an hour a day…”

“I was quite certain about it, yes.”

“It’s just, I was wondering, if just this once, you might let me have a little extra time — I had a night terror that he was here and I, I just feel safe with you, can I stay with you tonight?”

Say no, you will yourself, stifling smile and broad shoulders lean you into the conversation and the rational part of you howls on about boundaries and oversteps but you’re past caring. “If that’s what you want.” you shrug rather haphazardly.

Her eyes light up in the most exquisite way, “You’ll stay with me?” she reiterates with a grin that pulls up and dimples her cheeks.

“Go and get in bed before I change my mind.” you roll yours eyes.

With a natural servility she bids you goodnight and scampers off to bed and you know, you _know_ you will follow her upstairs. It takes two minutes of rough house wrestling between your head and your heart but it’s clear who won the fight when you find yourself toeing up the last few steps quietly and turning right towards her bedroom.

“Clarke?” you whisper into the dark open crack of the door, there’s no reply and you are both relieved and disappointed that she fell asleep without you.

You foot back to your bedroom and close the door behind you. It’s dark and save for a slither of light that illuminates a thin strip of the door, you can’t see anything. 

The hairband clinging to your wrist is quickly put to other uses as you wrap your unruly brown locks into a bun, you pull your sweatpants off and roll into bed before goosebumps spread down the backs of your thighs, blindly you reach out and what greets you earns a nervous flinch of your muscles.

“Miss Lexa?” she tiredly mumbles.

“What are you doing in here?”

You freeze. There is no protocol for this. She is splayed out on the other side of your bed with wide eyes that somehow find yours in the opacity of night and you want to kick her out and send her to her own quarters. No one is allowed in this room. You don’t kick her out though, you swallow, flex your fingers, breathe sharp little breaths through your nose, you tolerate this invasion.

“Miss Lexa?” she blinks again nervously and reaches out for you.

“I’m here,” you assure her and gently squeeze her hand. “I’m right here, don’t worry.”

In this moment you are her mistress, you are the protector of dreams and the warden of nightmares and the only thing that separates her from the terrors of ghosts that haunt her endlessly is you, and so you swallow your nerves like a mouthful of medicine and master your resolve.

She moves closer towards you, it’s tentative at first, these little shuffles that barely mess the bed sheets. Eventually you can feel her on the cusp of your personal space with her warm breath tickling you. It kills you. It’s too much and too little all at the same time.

“Come here then,” you groan and relent, lifting the edge of the silk covers you tucked around your body.

You expect her to cling to your hand or maybe just lie parallel to your figure. Instead she tackles you on to your back and burrows into the deepest heat of your body; arm wedged uncomfortably between your spine and the mattress so she can wrap herself around you, hands ghosting up and down your taut ribs, head tucked beneath your chin, nose pressed into your throat, leg hooked over your hip.

You open your mouth and close it again.

“Goodnight Miss Lexa,” she murmurs against your throat.

“Goodnight Brat.” you grouse and mean none of it.

She quickly falls asleep in your arms; lips vibrating with little snores against your throat and heavy breath that heat your skin. You leave her there for a minute, once you’re certain she is completely out, you’ll free yourself from her grasps and carry her back to her bedroom.

Until then you tenderly graze over her shoulder with your fingertips, even if she’s not awake to feel what you’re doing you know better than to touch her back. Her back is a place that’s off limits all together without her expressed permission. You can live with that, you decide, her shoulders are very beautiful and dainty after all.

You try to prise open her latched body gently with fingers wrapped around her wrist, hips wiggling to shake off her leg, but she will not release you. She presses herself into you harder, her joints coil around like a cobra squeezing it’s prey and you resign yourself to being her comforter tonight.

“This is stupid.” you mutter to yourself grumpily and huff.

Her snoring stops for a moment, you fear you’ve awoken her, but her hand slips into yours with fingers wrapping around your thumb and the vibrations against your throat resume once more.

“This is just pure greed.” you roll your eyes.

This feels like the receiving end of a particularly intricate form of bondage; it whips the beast that lives in your gut into a frenzy; you are not made to be domesticated or tethered to the whim of a hundred pound girl with fragile sensibilities. It’s disarming because here you are, puffing and sour faced, chin resting against her head, holding her tenderly whilst she pets the skin along your ribs in her sleep.

“Enjoy it while it lasts because this is a one time deal, kiddo.” you murmur tiredly and blink off sleep.

Regardless of your efforts exhaustion comes for you and lays claim. You’ll just close your eyes for five minutes, you decide, she is very comfortable in her own angular way after all. You close your eyes. 

Five minutes, you repeat in your head.

 


	7. I Wish I Was Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm working through some private things at the moment that has made it difficult to write this dynamic but I'm back and boy have I missed you guys! As always please go and follow me at diaphonouswords.tumblr.com for one shots and prompt fills.
> 
> Clarke's POV.

I dreamed of you last night.

We were happy, or at least I think we were. It was winter and snow that had started the day as a dusting starved off the darkness of night with a thick blanket of white that covered every inch of your garden from east to west and further into the horizon of the town below.

We watched it from the bay window in your office, the air was cool but I knelt beside your lap with my cheek against your thigh and you draped your greatcoat over my shoulders to keep me warm. It was the same one I see you wear in the early mornings when you walk the perimeter of your house to gather your thoughts.

In my dream I wasn't frightened. I wasn't quiet. I told you stories about growing up in the children's home; they were happy stories and you smiled when I told you that I bossed around the boys, especially Bellamy, he was too much show and it never once scared me.

You think that I'm scared and timid and weak. I can see it in your eyes and I so desperately want to put you in your place because I don't want to be the object of anyone's pity. I can feel my fingers flex and my heart punch my chest, but I do nothing, because you are so kind and gentle to me. I don't know what I did to deserve you, my beautiful stubborn problem, but if owning a small broken thing is what pleases you then I shall make myself tiny.

Though in my dream you treated me as if I was as huge and formidable as the tallest mountain. You took me to your bedroom and I knelt for you whilst you ran your fingers over the bare essential parts of me that you loved the most; you started with my knee, then my belly, then your fingers danced across the ridge of my collarbone.

It culminated with your hand taking a fist full of blonde hair and your teeth nipping at my neck with lingering hot wet kisses whilst you told me small things about how beautiful I am with a tone that bordered desperate violence in your mouth.

Like a hungry wolf and a wide-eyed rabbit in the clearing, true to our most guttural natures, I made you give chase.

You painted my rear red with the palms of your hand whilst I came undone over your lap and I hung off of every single whispered dirty word that I can barely imagine you allowing yourself to ever be unrestrained enough to say. In my dream you said all of them; every dirty word and beautiful threat known to man as if it was poetry in your bow shaped mouth.

You settled back in the pillows and I gave you my submission, like an alpha that eats first before the rest of the pack, you pulled off your belt and I slipped your trousers off the rest of your legs and settled between your tanned thighs.

I buried myself against you and earned little manacled gasps, my nose grazing against a soft patch of curls, your wetness coating the inside of my mouth. You told me I was good girl, you said it over and over again as if it were the answer to an otherwise arbitrary universe.

I awoke to the feeling of a soft grasp around both of my arms shaking me in the darkness of early morning. For a gut-wrenching second that felt like an eternity, I thought I was with master, but the beautiful reassuring sound of your voice talked me down until I could blink into focus and make out the unmistakable shape of your eyes.

"It's okay, you're okay baby, it's okay." you told me gently and pulled me against your chest, "I woke up and you were sweating and groaning in your sleep." you explain against the cusp of my hair and tuck me under your chin for safekeeping. I can feel your heartbeat flutter against my skin, I can feel your breast against the convex of my chest and all I can do is draw blushing sighs.

"Just a nightmare Miss." I lie and feel my cheeks burn.

You let me sleep in your bed some nights; four times last week and twice this week. You never offer me your bed or the warmth of your body. Instead on the nights when you want company, you bid me goodnight and I watch your eyes linger into soft wanting things and I save you the turmoil. I ask if you'll let me stay with you.

Occasionally you say no and mumble an excuse, but nearly always you give in and roll your eyes and I duck underneath your arm to a bed that smells like vanilla and coconuts.

"I think you were calling for me in your sleep." you muse and settle into the pillows.

"What?"

"You kept calling for Mistress."

"Oh god," I mumble and move to pull away from your chest, "I, I'm so sorry." the words tumble out of my mouth like lemmings off a cliff. I'd broken your one cardinal rule and the pit of my gut felt sore at the mere thought of invading your boundaries.

"Stop." you order and pull me back towards you chest, "We don't apologise in this house for nightmares."

Maybe I should tell you the truth, maybe I should admit that it was the furthest thing from a nightmare I've ever experienced. Maybe if you knew that I dream of settling between your thighs and pleasing you the way a lover pleases her mistress you would see me differently. Then again, I don't think either of us are ready to even see that bridge come into the horizon.

"Just a nightmare." I shake my head and sigh, settling back onto your chest. Your hands move through my hair and you fingers trail down my spin. I flinch and hate myself for it.

"Sorry," I feel you wince beneath me and pull back your hand. "That was an accident little one."

"Can I ask you a question Miss Lexa?"

"You just did."

"I mean, can I ask a different one?"

"You just did."

I groan and you dissolve into slow quiet chuckles that feel warm and thick. I love the way you laugh. I love it even more when my ear is pressed beneath your breasts and I can hear them rumble around inside your ribs... I don't even mind if I'm the butt of it.

"I'm kidding," you finally sigh and tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. "Ask away."

"What's inside the room at the bottom of the hallway?" I ask quietly and bite my lip.

My heart beats violently against my chest as I wait for an answer. I feel you tense beneath me like a spring coiling back and I have to fortify my joints to stop myself curling up out of fear you'll hit me. You won't, I know you won't, but the fear remains.

"Ask me a different question."

"Have you ever been in love before?" I blurt and feel myself melt under your confused stare.

"Once." you admit sadly.

This feels different now; your body is loose and I feel as if my arms around your waist and my cheek against your shoulder are all that is keeping you together. You aren't Miss Lexa right now. In fact I doubt there's even a little Lexa left in the hollows of your haunted eyes.

"Her name was Costia." you clear the long gnaw in your throat, "Always difficult, always beautiful. I don't think anyone has ever loved anything as much as I loved her." I watch you weep softly. "As much as I still love her."

"Of course not," I speak out of turn and forget my place, "things are to be used and people are to be loved. I think if people remembered that the world would be a kinder place." I nod against your chest in agreement.

I feel you shift uncomfortably as if the heat of my body is attacking you with proximity and all I can do is roll off of your and settle by your side.

"I, I'm sorry," I breathe and pinch the bridge of my nose, "I spoke out of turn and it was rude—"

"Stop." you tell me with a sigh of your own, "Perhaps if I was feeling myself it would be enough to earn a stern brow but you're not my submissive and you can speak freely. I think we'd both do well to remember that."

Your words split my skin like paper cuts. I now know something of how a flower must feel when the sun hides behind clouds in the middle of spring because the reminder that I'm no one's submissive leaves a hollow echo in my heart.

"But," I say tentatively and think on my words, "I mean, I am something to you, right?" I force a small awkward laugh, "I, I live with you and you take care of me and I kneel at your lap whilst you read your editorial copies—"

"Clarke."

You cut me off with a low grumble and I clench my eyes close because I know this is about to hurt. I can hear it in the thunder of your voice. I can feel it in the electricity of your presence. I pushed you too far and now you're going to knock me down.

"You are not my submissive." you growl introspectively, "You are not and you never will be. I was promised to another and as long as I'm alive, she's alive too in some small way."

"Lexa—"

"No!" you hiss, "I have shown you kindness and dignity and, and friendship! I have clothed you and fed you and yes, okay, yes! Perhaps I take more pleasure in taking you to my bed than I should, but there is a line and you will not continue to push it!"

"Lexa—"

"You are not my submissive, Clarke, you are not my submissive because most of all? He hurt you and I can't promise that in some small way I won't either. You deserve more than that."

I dive at you.

My weight knocks you off balance and sends your sitting figure back into the mattress, you resist at first, I feel the sinewed muscle in your legs grow taut as you ready yourself to flip me off of you. I cling to your body and seek out your mouth.

You grow still.

I kiss you and for a moment reality is a gaseous vapour that fades around us and the only solid crystalline thing within my grasps is you. My tongue begs for entry and reluctantly you open your mouth; I hold your cheeks tightly and your weeping eyes obscure my view. I stare back entranced, hopeful, pleading that you'll want me back.

You shift your weight and throw me on my back. It's forceful and angry but you maintain enough restraint to hold my wrists gently as you clamber in position over me. I watch you heave above me like a shuddering felled beast and this is the most alive I have felt in what feels like a lifetime.

A single lone tear dribbles all the ways from your eye to my cheek, suddenly, reality is a heavy burden once more and my mouth opens and closes again under your watchful appraisal. I try to apologise, the first vowel gets ready to leave my lips but then you lunge forward.

You kiss me and I am in awe of you.

"Get out." you growl against my mouth and pull back, wiping your tears with the backs of your hands. "Get the hell out of my room and wait until you're sent for." you shudder above me and release your grip.

"Miss—"

"Get out!" you yelp and bend over yourself, winded and despondent.

I can hear the sound of breaking glass and snapping wood from my neighboring room. I flinch, breathe and still myself with guilty hands that pick at my skin. You seethe in this way that feels as adverse as a hurricane or maybe a tsunami, the walls shake against the show of your anger and violence as if you're a natural disaster. You slow into a stillness, the sound of furniture hitting the walls and your hollow voice screaming against shattered glass quiets into the aftermath of the storm.

"Miss Lexa," I mumble and sigh to myself, "I think I'm falling for you."  
  



	8. You're So Fucking Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, follow me at diaphonouswords.tumblr.com to see my other writing and leave your prompts.
> 
> Hold on to your shit folks...

 

The town was sodden wet. The buildings dripped and the water ran in the same direction and converged on the roads until the gutters and drains couldn't cope anymore and gave up under the rain's effort. Though it didn't stop you, if anything it pushed you further, the tires of your car took to corners with precision and the water from the deepest puddles splashed up onto the windows with a noise that sounded almost like applause at the symphony of your breakdown.

You took long pulls from the whiskey bottle in your right hand and wiped angry needle-like tears away as the speed limit became a light suggestion in your mind rather than a law.

The sight of greenery and shops and raincoats and people doing early morning mundane things and submissives tailing their masters and masters holding doors open offers you a brief glimpse into the normalcy you've locked yourself away from. It sickens you, it makes you wish you could claw your skin off, because Costia lives in every happy mundane moment and if you could burn away the α mark that taints your wrist and send her away to a far place where those green eyes could haunt you no longer, you would.

Instead you just pull another gulp of bitter amber liquid into the hollows of your cheek with an ever-tightening expression and hit the gas. Less than a dozen times you've ventured out into this world since the night your life was torched to ash and bone, but Clarke's plump lips are enough to send you scuttling into this unknown like a cockroach escaping light.

Part of you hopes you crash the car before you get to where you're going. It was Anya’s idea in the months after the tragedy. She slipped you a black business card with a name and number in gold stenciling on the back and told you there was no shame in alternate therapy.

You had heard of Raven Reyes before from a number of dominants around town. It was always a quiet dirty kind of talk, the same hushed tone people use when they speak of red light districts, cheating husbands, bad mothers and in this case… petite spunky submissives who specialise in power exchange therapy reserved for the most stubborn of troubled dominants.

You made a big show of crushing the business card in your hand and tossing it in the trash can. You never told her that after she left that day you pulled it back out, flattened it in the palm of your hands and slipped it into your wallet.

You drive for what feels like an hour but is most probably fifteen minutes. The car pulls around side streets and doubles back around dead ends as the warmth of the amber liquid knocking around in the bottle beside you starts to haze your cognition.

You haven’t been back to this place since your last session a year ago. The therapist, or rather the mechanic as the private circle of clients who knew her penchant for fixing things called her, became something of a friend and that was unacceptable. 

Her therapy relied on an exhange of power that embarrassed you, you would come to this practice out of hours and kneel for your therapist whilst she digged around in the afflicted parts of your subconscious and tried to get to the roots of your post traumatic stress as a platonic mistress of sorts.

You thought it impossible; the act of slipping into some mild form of submission, kneeling and casting your eyes to floor, allowing another person to bare witness to the metastasizing darkness that poisoned your heart and head like cancer. It was actually easier than you like to admit to submit yourself to that suffering.

The thing that terrified you in the end was the dry little jokes shared in the elevator back to the ground floor at the end of your sessions, the homemade leftovers she brought over with merlot to wash it down because god knows you weren’t eating, the secondhand comic books that you ended up taking home with you because the legendary mechanic discovered your joint love for Batgirl.

Friendship was off the table because friendship implied that you could stomach something more than a transactional service. Stomach it you could not.

Nonetheless you get out of the Wraith with nothing but a thin bit of hood to shield you from the worst of the rain. Shuddering and sobbing, you march towards the unassuming building just in time to catch Raven on her boyfriend’s arm opening up for the day.

“Er, honey?” he mutters into her ear, locking eyes with you. “You said your first appointment wasn’t for another hour.”

“Hmm? It isn’t Sir.” she looked between her open purse and his chiseled jaw that flexed with a certain curiosity.

She turns and peers at you for what feels like a decade. Her eyes fix and it takes a second for cognition to wash over her and drag the smile out of her cheeks like the morning tide. 

You’re sobbing, heaving even, it shudders your lungs and you gasp and claw against your chest. “R-Ray,” you mouth a broken sound, “I, I—“

“Help me get her inside.” Raven rushes to your figure and shoulders you weight with an arm wrapped around your slim waist. Her dominant swallows and fiddles with the keys to the practice and that’s when the darkness of your post-traumatic stress blinds you with an episode.

“Lexa it’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here buddy.”

It’s the last thing you hear before you fade out.

…

You pull the Huracan into the gates of the estate and check the analogue clock behind the power steering. Sixty minutes late, you internally groan and glance at the stack of fashion covers for the summer edition of Vanguard that sit on your passenger seat. It’s a poor excuse at best but Father will understand — business has to take a certain precedence even over birthday parties.

Costia however is a different story. You know she will backtalk her way into a spanking tonight over your tardiness and you would really rather not punish her on special occasions but God knows that little wild thing of yours loves to try your patience.

The thought makes you bite your grinning mouth.

There’s gigantic pink helium balloons weighed down around the fountain, pink banners draping around the cladding of the house, pink tealights spiralling around the pillars in the front. It looks as if Barbie and her friends have vomitted over the estate and you can’t help but shake your head and laugh because _of course_ Father would do this for Mom’s birthday.

With the Vanguard covers tucked under your arm you approach the open front door. It takes maybe ten steps, ten individual little moments, ten paces closer towards what should be your mother’s sixtieth birthday party in less than an hour when the guests arrive before it dawns on you.

There was no twitch of the blinds of your bedroom, the universal symbol that Costia knew you were coming up the drive. There’s no loud bristling of your Father walking around pointing at decorations that aren’t _just_ right. Absent is the sound of feet clattering down a mahogony staircase so Costia can be the first to tell you off for being late.

You don’t know why but it catches you alight.

There’s a peculiar absence of existence within the house as you walk through the front door and each step feels like a drum beat against the silence.

There’s the a loud bang, the sharp sound of glass shattering upstairs followed by a woman’s screams. Your feet set themselves into motion with an automatic muscle response and with shaking hands you feel around your thigh for your service weapon.

It isn’t there. You were formally discharged from the Navy six months ago and your service weapon is locked away in the gun cabinet in Father’s office. Your heart is punching your chest. 

You pass your Father’s office and tempt the idea of getting your handgun but you can’t remember the code for the safe and your body is on an automatic course for the source of the screaming. You tell yourself someone accidentally knocked over your mother’s favourite vase, you tell yourself Costia is watching a horror film, you tell yourself all kinds of things.

“Dad?” you yell.

Nothing.

“Mom?”

Nothing.

“Costia?” you finally call with frustration as you reach the last step.

It occurs to you that you the screaming has ceased and you’re not sure when exactly it stopped but the drawn nerve wracking silence leaves you wishing for it once more.

“Get her wedding ring.” you hear a gruff voice disturb the silence, “Quick! We need to get out of here!” it grows antsy and panicked.

“No one was supposed to get hurt! You said no one would get hurt Sir!” another voice yelped.

You burst into your parents bedroom and it’s too late.

The back of your father’s head is more entry wound than skin. One of the would-be burglers is over him, snivelling and barely keeping it together, pulling on the expensive watch around his limp wrist.

Your mother is dying. Blood is bubbling out of a red stain over the chest of her pink dress; she’s choking to death and two armed robbers with their backs turned seperate you from saving her life.

“Sir!” the snivelling boy grabs him as he notices your shadow cast over the room like a blanket.

“Shit.” the master feels around for his gun.

You take off down the hall and head for your bedroom. There’s a hunting knife in your draw somewhere. Adrenalin is saturating every neuron and all that stops you vomiting is the knowledge that Costia is here somewhere and you _need_ to protect her.

The bangs of a gun goes off again and you fall through your bedroom door and land in a heap on the wooden floor. You’re dying, you’re certain of it. You roll on to your back and blood is seeping out of you like the swell of a broken river bank and you know quite certainly you’re going to die now. You have short shallow gasps and they’re not nearly enough but it’s all you can muster.

There’s a broken sob that emanates from the side of you.

You hear it through the loud clattering and ‘Fucks’ and ‘You said she wasn’t heres’ that emanate from the hallway outside the room. Your head rolls towards the sound of the noise and you find yourself peering at Costia hunched underneath the bed. Breathe, you tell yourself… she’s safe there for now.

“Stay put,” you mouth with blood pooling at your tongue, “you be a good girl and you stay put.”

“Mistress.” she reaches for you.

“Stay there!” you hiss and splutter, “You stay there until it’s safe and you go back to your family and you tell them I did one thing right.” you gasp for a little breath. “You find someone good to take care of my beautiful difficult girl.” you can’t help but close your eyes, “But for right now? You just stay there until help comes.”

“Don’t die. If you die… I’m gonna kill you.”

“Just stay put Costia.”

You can hear the men shouting at one another in the hallway, you can hear glass breaking, there’s the distinct sound of your mother’s jewellery safe clicking open and there’s only one other person who knows the combination to that safe. And with this information you know it’s your mother’s new house boy behind this. Him and his master. Your gut wrangles itself in knots trying to understand how your parents kindness could be repaid like this.

“Mistress…”

You breathe and force yourself to smile at her mascara stained face. You can see the remnants of gold eyeshadow. You loved it when she wore gold eyeshadow. It made the green of her eyes deeper if that was even possible. 

“Always difficult, always beautiful.” you smile because you’ll be damned if it’s not the last thing you do.

“Don’t die.” she pleads with you in a tiny whispered tone.

“I’ll try.”

“I am yours and you’re mine so you have to live, okay?” she says it as if it’ll make you stay.

You hear the men spill out of your mother’s dressing room, they’re talking amongst themselves, panicked and aware that Indra and the boys will be back any minute.

“Go! Make sure the daughter’s dead!” you hear the master grunt.

You hear their footsteps draw closer, heavy footed and brisk, you find yourself silently begging an arbitrary universe to let the boy mistake your blood for death and leave in a hurry.

“One in her head for safe measure.” you hear the master add.

“Mistress…” you hear a hollow quiet sob.

You close your eyes and play dead as he stands in the door way, the sound of his finger pulling tentatively against the trigger is audible along with the noise of something scuttling near the bed and all you can do is pray that for once in her damn life Costia’s doing as she’s told. There’s two gunshots, pain explodes in your right shoulder and then the next thing you’re aware of is something warm and heavy landing on top of you with a thud.

You hear the men run.

“No,” you whimper and keep your eyes clenched close, you won’t open them, you won’t because this isn’t real. It can’t be. You won’t let it exist and so for a moment you keep your eyes closed and allow Schroedinger’s cat to purr around you.

Eventually, open your eyes you do.

She’s gone, it would have been instantaneous, between the second bang of the gun and the thud of her body, her life would have evaporated like a wisp of steam. You’re certain of it from the wound on the back of her head. She must have thrown herself in the way of that second bullet and you’re left hating her in your last earthly moments for it.

A noise not of this world escapes your throat like the manacled scream of a lamb being lead to slaughter. Hazy is the world like a soft focus lense. Costia’s body is warm and all you can do is hold her face to your chest and rock her like a child.

Then there’s nothing.

You wake in a hospital room three weeks later and they’re astounded your alive. You shouldn’t be. They tell you that as if you don’t already know it and you want to tear the wires out of your skin and let your heartbeat simmer into a quiet nothingness like before. Anya doesn’t let you though, she’s there, red eyed and very much the singular person you have left in this world. She holds your hands to the bed when they sedate you and once more…

There’s nothing.

…

You come around to find yourself clutching a square pillow beneath your chin, curled up on an uncomfortable sofa, sobbing a violent hollow cry with your head in Raven’s lap.

“It’s okay.” she hushes you and from the glare of sunlight that cuts a leyline through your eyes over the cusp of the building outside you know you’ve both been here for hours.

“Costia.” your voice aches and mumbles, “Where’s Costia?”

“Your name is Lexa Woods. You’re twenty-eight years old. Two years ago your family were killed in a robbery gone wrong, you were shot twice, once in the shoulder and once in your chest.” she tells you these facts about yourself slowly.

“You’re here with me, Raven Reyes, at the therapy practice. You used to come here after the accident but… it’s been a while.” she explains away and you feel more tied to reality listening to her drone.

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“No, god no honey.” she tells you and runs her hand over your head, “Well, you kicked a fire extinguisher but I think between your foot and the extinguisher… the extinguisher won.”

“Good to know.”

“What the holy hell happened, Lexa?”

“I, I, I need…”

“Take your time,” your old therapist tells you, “I’ve cleared my schedule for the day… what do you need?”

“I need you to help me.” you force yourself to admit those dreaded words and clench your eyes closed. “I, I, I met a girl and I thought I could just take of her and that would enough, and it was, it was enough or at least I thought it was and then she went and kissed me and I lost it—”

“Slow down.” she wraps a hand around your shoulder and you rid yourself of a long deep breath.

You realise your still lying with your head in her lap and you couldn’t be more embarrassed. Well, you know that isn’t strictly true but this is a close second. You sit yourself up and wipe the still moist trail of tears off of your neck.

“I’m sorry I just turned up like this. It was wrong and I shouldn’t have bothered you Raven… I, I should make an appointment and come back another time.” you steady your expression into the stoney facade you wear so well.

Raven just rolls her eyes and chuckles.

“Lexa,” she clears her throat, “do you remember our rules?”

“I do.”

“Good.” she replies and reaches for the hourglass on her desk and all of a sudden your gut ties itself in a particular kind of knot.

The hourglass represented the start of a session and once the sands began to slip through the bottleneck, the roles were reversed and you allowed her to take control for just long enough to dig down into the parts of your trauma you were too forthright to let see the light of day.

“Lexa I want you to come here and tell me from start to finish, as slowly as you like, everything that has happened with this girl.”

“Yes Miss Raven.” you mumble the bitter words in your mouth and remind yourself of something your father once said.

There’s a little submission in the act of dominance and a little dominance in the act of submission.

 


End file.
